


Vampire Smile

by BlueJayRose



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Because Bucky is literally a vampire, Blood Kink, Blood as Actual Food, Canon-Typical Violence, Catholicism, Codependency, Dom/sub Undertones, First Time, Food Issues, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Lifelong Devotion, Lots of Angst, M/M, Not even remotely sorry, Period Typical Attitudes, Pining, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Hatred, Spit Kink, Starvation, Switching, Vampire!Bucky, almost canon compliant, detached and medical descriptions of torture and pregnancy, written by an atheist but I tried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-25 17:25:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 61,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4969834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueJayRose/pseuds/BlueJayRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is a monster, he is the child of a devil who grew up in a God-fearing orphanage, but Steve doesn’t seem to mind him, so he keeps his head down and loves Steve and tries not to care about the fact he’s going to hell. But then comes the war, and Zola, and all of his carefully hoarded secrets break loose and Steve will surely never love him the same way again.</p><p>Then he falls, and winter comes.</p><p>And then, much later, he remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Did I probably read too much Dark Romance in my tweens? Yes. Is this entire fic utterly self-indulgent and unnecessary? Absolutely. I apologise for nothing. You’re welcome.
> 
> Title from Kyla La Grange’s 'Vampire Smile' because it’s a good song and I have no shame.

_Baby you need to leave_

_'Cause I'm getting drunk on your noble deeds_

_It doesn't matter that they don't get done_

_When I feel this cold they're like the fucking sun_

_Baby I need a friend_

_But I'm a vampire smile you'll meet a sticky end_

_And here I'm trying not to bite your neck_

_But it's beautiful and I'm gonna get_

_So drunk on you and kill your friends_

_And you'll need me and we can be obsessed_

_And I can touch your hair and taste your skin_

_The ghosts won't matter 'cause we're high on sin_

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn’t exactly know what he is, but he doesn’t really care. He can’t change it, so there’s no point in wondering if he really is the kind of monster people have told fearful stories of for centuries. He’s never met another like him, and it wouldn't bother him if he never does. It doesn’t stop him knowing who he is. He doesn’t let the fact that he’s a monster change the way he behaves. Or, he tries not to.

This is what Bucky knows about what he is: he came to the orphanage when he was a baby. The nuns tell him now that a woman dropped him off at dusk, a tiny pale child with dark hair and green-grey eyes who did not cry. They say the woman wanted them to tell him when he was older that it was better like this, that she couldn’t raise him herself. She said she was sorry, but she didn’t know what else to do. And she said that his father was the devil. She said that the devil had come to her in the night, she couldn’t help it, and she prayed to God for forgiveness. Mother Superior hadn’t wanted to tell him that, but the woman, Bucky’s mother, she made Sister Maria swear on God’s name to tell him. She needed him to know that he had a mother who loved him, and prayed for him, and that she was sorry but she wanted him to be raised by good people who could bring him up well, despite what his father was, so that Bucky can be good. That snippet of information and the name James Buchanan Barnes, that’s all his mother gave him. Still more than what others have got though, he supposes.

Steve, he remembers his mother’s perfume, her smile, he knows that her name was Sarah Rogers and his father was a soldier. He knows his birthday is the fourth of July and he knows his mother wouldn’t have left him unless she couldn’t help it, unless she hadn’t died of tuberculosis when he was seven. It’s ok though, Bucky’s not jealous of Steve. Steve deserved those few years of happiness more than Bucky - hell, Steve deserves every good thing that exists. Bucky’s fine, he’s alright as long as he’s got Steve. And he has, they’ve had each other since they were seven, so that’s ok.

When they met, Bucky was surviving the bigger boys and bullies by fighting anyone who came too close. Most of the boys even a few years older than him were hardened already, a lot had spent time living on the streets. Some stole things or hid knuckledusters in threadbare pockets. So Bucky learned to lash out at anyone before they could touch him. If they stole his food, he stole someone else’s. He was a constant trial to the nuns, intimidating to most of the smaller boys, and he tended to get a detention, caned or at least scolded at an average of once a week.

But Steve was different, right from the start. He smiled, he was kind. He only fought anyone if they threw the first punch. Steve shared his food with Bucky without Bucky even having to ask. Steve shared his drawings and his time with Bucky too, and within a week they were friends. One month later, Bucky had ensured he gained a reputation for fighting anyone who hurt Steve Rogers. He stopped caring about people in his space quite so much. After that, he still usually got caned about once a month, because Steve Rogers had an apparently unstoppable inability to keep his damn mouth shut, but it was worth it.

Bucky found out that his father was the devil when he was maybe thirteen, but it didn’t really help much the next spring, when he and everyone else around him started waking up with messy sheets, and hair started growing and voices changing, and he also started getting hungry. Not hungry like a growing boy, but really starving. Starving all the time. He ate just the same amount as everyone else, even though the food stopped really tasting good anymore, but his ribs showed up more than Steve’s. Steve was scared for him - he wasn't obvious about it, but he'd always try to give Bucky at least of a little of his portion, saying something like, "Here, you eat this, it's disgusting and I'm not hungry," and it's an obvious lie; Steve's terrible at lies. Bucky would refuse him every time, because somehow, despite his hunger, he didn't want Steve's food, or his own. The truth was, he was scared for himself, too. Because he started wanting...Everyone was talking about how now they wanted to kiss girls. Bucky wanted to bite them. He wanted to bite everyone he came across. He wanted to tear and rip and suck. Blood, he realised, when Steve grazed his knee and Bucky couldn’t take his eyes off it, blood was what he really wanted.

It was ridiculous. Unheard of. But nonetheless, in class, when he was supposed to be concentrating on his times tables, the hunger would creep up on him, and his mouth would start watering, his thoughts wandering to bitter red cherries, salty scarlet jellies, the rarest of rare steak. After a while, he could barely make himself eat normal food. Meat was the easiest to handle, but it didn't make him feel full. He couldn't look the desire head-on in his mind, but nonetheless, relentlessly it dodged around the edges of his head, woke him in the night and sidled up to him at inopportune moments. He couldn't get out of his head the idea that blood could fix the hunger that filled him up with a dreadful hollowness. It helped, in a way, that his conscious mind couldn't take the idea seriously. It meant it was easy to tell himself, as he was doing it, that he was just picking a fight with Frank Mullins because the guy was an asshole and had it coming. Because what else would make sense?

Frank Mullins was a kid from down the block, one of the ones who looked down on the orphanage kids, and he always tried to beat on Steve when he saw him, even though Steve was tiny at thirteen and Frank was huge at sixteen. So the next time that Bucky walked past him on the street he called out names, he can’t even remember what now. Frank herded him into a back alley, right into the deep dark trash-filled recesses, didn’t even seem to notice that he went willingly. He yelled, “asswipe” “bastard” and “fuck-face”, and he carried on saying it while Frank held his arms in one hand above his head and punched his face over and over. His sight went with the pain and tears. He could probably get out of it if he tried hard enough, but he didn’t, he wasn’t even trying. Part of him, the rational part, was demanding he run, asking what the hell the rest of him thought he was doing? But, really, he knew, and then the skin of Frank’s knuckles tore, and Bucky smelt blood, and it was on his face, so close to his lips and his vision went red. He tore out of Frank’s grip, turned and pushed them back into the alley wall hard enough that the smack echoed, and then he lunged at Frank’s throat and _bit_.

This is what happens when Bucky drinks blood: his teeth get longer and sharper and sensitive so that the parting of flesh feels like a lovers caress, and it feels like drinking water after three days without it. It feels like cinnamon and sugar and maple syrup sliding through his mouth and down his throat, it feels like a sugar rush. It tastes of iron and salt and it’s so warm and so rich and it fills him up until he feels like he’s bursting. It slips straight into his own bloodstream and into his brain and sometimes he actually moans at the way it feels. It feels like a high, like the whiskey he stole and drank with Steve when they were fourteen that made everything blurry, hilarious and brilliant, but without the aftertaste or the burn. It feels like a drug. He drinks and sucks, though he barely has to suck at all because the body’s own heart pumps it out. He drinks until his stomach is full, and sometimes his dick is too because there’s probably a few crossed wires in his head and it just feels so good. Soon enough, the hunger and the instincts clear enough for him to think again, and although he’s never quite sated he’ll pull back and lick over the wound he’s left and it heals in a minute or two.

He didn’t know that back then, in the alley, but he sucks and licks anyway. Probably instinct takes over, that’s what it feels like. Like how you shrink from pain or lean into pleasure, it just makes sense. The mark he leaves on Frank isn’t neat, but it hasn’t messed up his throat completely. It just looks like a regular bite mark, like into the skin of an apple before you tear the flesh away, just two red, bleeding and aggravated semi-circles. As he watches, the marks get shallower, the skin knits back together and although the area around it is bruised, the cuts are gone. At some point, Frank stopped being able to hold up his own weight, and now Bucky’s kneeling over him and holding up his torso. Frank’s pale but Bucky’s not scared, because he can hear Frank’s heartbeat. It’s a little slower than normal maybe, but it’s still steady. It’s fine. Bucky’s sated and full, the hunger that's been driving him for weeks finally abating, and for a moment he just breathes, enjoying it's absense.

It takes a couple of seconds before the panic sets in. Because what is he, what is he doing, how can he have done this, how is this possible? He dumps Frank onto the ground and runs. Almost dashes straight out into the street full of people, but then he flinches back fast, turns his back on the alley opening and furiously scrubs at his mouth. There’s blood on his lips, it’s dripping down his chin. It’s only then he notices that all the marks Frank left on him are gone - his nose was bleeding before, but now it’s not, his split lip is healed and the bruising he could feel swelling round his eye has abated completely. And he feels different too. He feels good, strong like he hasn’t since he started feeling hungry all the time. Stronger, actually. He flexes his hands.

Then he hears a groan from Frank, still on the ground. He props himself up on his elbows, says, “What-” and Bucky’s gone. Onto the street, but not running, just walking with his head down and his cap pulled low, usual swagger completely gone. He walks fast back to the orphanage even though it’s Saturday afternoon, the only time of the week when they’re allowed to go out unsupervised, and he finds Steve where he’s reading his new comic books, in the playground under the cherry tree because Steve is predictable like that. Steve looks up and says, “Hey,” and then goes back to his book. Bucky goes next to him, and Steve glances up at him again, notices all the blood down his shirt and on his cuffs and says, “Did you get in a fight?”

“Frank Mullins,” Bucky says, and it’s an answer.

“You know you don’t gotta do that on my account-”

“It wasn’t on your account. He was hassling some girl.” Bucky lies easy, the way Steve’s terrible at.

“Oh. Well then. You fine?”

“Of course.”

“Mmm.”

Steve goes quiet, goes back to his story again, and Bucky lies down next to him, staring up at the sky. Petals from the cherry tree are falling around him and Steve. It looks like snow, it looks like winter in spring, but it’s just petals, it’s not cold. They’re pink. Bucky closes his eyes, tries to think.

The first thing he thinks of, obviously, is vampires. It’s very clear to him that he’s not human. He could hear Frank’s heartbeat before, and now, if he’s quiet and listens careful, he can hear Steve’s too. He’s never been able to do that before. And something else...a smell. He can smell Steve’s skin, and they’re sitting half a foot apart. So that means he’s been changed somehow, though he has no idea how. He goes through all the vampire myths he knows; the holy water and garlic, the sign of the cross and silver, and the sunlight. Well, he’s lying in the sunlight right now, and he’s fine. He walked under the sign of the cross to get in the gates of the orphanage. This is ridiculous, it’s impossible. He’s never been bitten by anyone, and vampires don’t exist. But vampires are supposed to be demons, and he remembers then what his mother said, and then he’s sure. It doesn't make sense, it shouldn't be possible and he has no idea how it is, but Bucky is a vampire.

The next few days, he’s walking on eggshells. He waits to feel the hunger again, to want to drink from someone again, but the thirst is barely present. He waits for Frank to tell someone - tell everyone - what he is. He waits for a mob to swarm the orphanage or the police to knock on the door and tear him away from Steve, kill him, maybe. But no one comes. He eats his breakfast lunch and dinner like usual, and while the food doesn’t really taste of anything, or sate his hunger, he can still eat it. On Sunday, he waits for the holy water he’s blessed with at mass to burn him, and it doesn’t. Steve gets into a fight with some bully on Tuesday, and Bucky cleans up his cuts without feeling the urge to suck from Steve, even when he can’t hold his breath any longer and lets himself smell it. It smells good, there’s no denying it, and he does want, but he can stop himself from taking. It’s not that hard. It’s harder by Friday, when some boy Henry falls and skins his elbow across the playground, and Bucky can smell it on the wind where he’s playing cards with Steve. It’s hard, but he can do it. He is not a demon. He is not the devil. He can resist temptation as good as any of the saints.

Come Saturday, and what he’s dreading is seeing Frank again. Because Frank knows what he is. He’s - what he did to Frank was so sick. It was so wrong.

(He wants to do it again. He needs it again. He’s so hungry.)

What if Frank points at him on the street, yells “vampire,” “monster,” “demon,” what if they come and get him and lock him up where he’ll never get out again, what if they take him away from Steve, from his home? He’s jittery and sick with fear, but he walks down Frank’s street anyway, because if it’s going to happen, he needs to know now, he can’t avoid this. If he’s a demon, he’s got to get what he deserves. If they take him away from his home, it’s because he’s evil, and if they take him away from Steve, it’s for Steve's good.

But when he walks past Frank where he’s mucking around with his friends outside his dad’s butchers' shop, Frank’s eyes meet his, then slide over him. And Bucky just keeps on walking. And it’s like nothing happened.

Bucky goes back home stunned after that, he forgets to do anything else. And by the end of that week, the hunger is so bad that he feels dizzy when he stands, his throat feels like sandpaper no matter how much water he drinks, he’s cold all the time and when John grazes his arm climbing the oak tree, Bucky holds his breath and walks away before he climbs up there too and -

The next Saturday he finds David Collins who’s hurt Steve eight times this year and it’s April, and bites him in a different back alley, because he cannot survive any longer like this. Once he’s done, he waits for a while, he hides himself back into the grimy dark space behind a dustbin and watches while David wakes up, picks himself off the ground, stares around the alley in apparent confusion. He checks his neck, and it comes away covered in blood, but the wound’s already healed over like Frank’s was. David stands, and he’s a little unsteady, but he rights himself in an instant. He says, “Fuck,” takes a step, pauses, then walks right out of the alley. Bucky waits a second, and the follows behind him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he has no clue at all - by all rights what he’s about to do is ridiculously stupid. But he’s been living for two weeks like there’s a weight over his head, and if it’s going to fall he just wants it to happen already, so he goes up to David and taps him on the shoulder. David’s face twists into a sneer and he says, “You coming back for more, Barnes? You knock a guy out once, think you’re so big, but I’ll get you back. Just you wait, I’ll fucking kill you-”

He cuts out when he sees Bucky smiling. He’s grinning so big because David’s forgotten just like Frank forgot, neither of them remember what he’s done and no one knows what he is apart from him. He’s safe, they don’t know, and he can stay living at the orphanage, he can stay with Steve. His grin is wide, and shows his teeth, and David catches sight of them and his sneer fades a little, his brow fades in confusion but not comprehension and Bucky smiles wider and says, “See you later then, fuck-face,” turns on his heels and walks away.

 

 

 

After that, Bucky drinks once a week. He takes blood from two guys most weeks, sometimes three in winter. It means that the gnawing hunger eases enough that he can think without obsessing over feeding. It also means his body stays warm like it should, so that no one who touches him will suspect what he is, and that means he can keep Steve warm when he gets sick. He drinks all the bullies on the nearest ten blocks, and none of them ever remember him. He doesn’t want to create too much of a risk though, so he tries to leave a long time before he drinks from the same one twice. It doesn’t ever seem to hurt any of them long term, so he decides not to feel that guilty over it. He’s not killing them, he’s barely even hurting them, and if they’ve hurt Steve than they deserve it.

A few months after he starts feeding regularly, he notices that all of them are scared of him. None of them want to start a fight with him or Steve anymore. Good. And it’s lucky for him as well, because he watches his thigh gashed by a broken bottle heal up in under a minute and that would be extremely hard to explain to or hide from Steve if they were still getting in too many fights. He heals slower if he doesn’t lick his wounds, but it’s still way faster than it is for anyone else. Anyone human.

 

 

 

The summer he’s fourteen, and he’s kissing Amanda, the first girl he ever crushed on, in a diner. It’s good, kissing, it’s sucking and licking, and he likes that. Sometimes it’s hard to remember not to bite, hard to stop his teeth from cutting, grazing, but he practices, gets better and better at it. Still, by the end of the week she’s bored of him, but he shrugs it off, and kisses her friend Kate instead. Steve just rolls his eyes when he hears, and says, “Just remember that sinners like you go to hell,” and Bucky laughs, but yeah, he knows.

 

 

 

That winter Steve gets pneumonia, and Bucky stays with him every day and every night he’s not in lessons or mass, he jokes and tells stories and reads to Steve and he’s so so glad when he gets better. There was a little while there, a space of days, where he wasn't sure. When the foundations of his world showed their cracks and he almost broke down because Steve Rogers shouldn't hurt, no God worth spit would create a world where Steve Rogers has to hurt like that. But it's alright, because Steve's breathing eases and his lungs clear. It's all ok, because Steve gets better. Steve Rogers is -

He’s -

Bucky’s best friend is the best guy he knows. He’s funny and dry, but he’s also kind, and he’s caring and he’s clever. He never once lets Bucky down. Sure, he sulks when he’s mad, he can’t lie for shit and he gets pissed off if you compliment him, but basically he’s a saint. He stands up to bullies, he yells and screams until authority comes over if he can, and if he can’t he’ll use his fists and his feet and elbows and even though he is tiny, he can hurt people. Bucky taught him to throw a punch when they were twelve, because Bucky’s learned the hard way all the ways not to do it, and Steve’s not very strong but he learns how to use the force he does have pretty fucking well. He can cheer anyone up by being near them, even the new kids who aren’t used to being orphans and still cry through the night. He will be friends with the kids who have no friends, the damaged and broken and abused ones, even the ones that don’t talk. They talk to him. He can draw anything better than a photograph, and when his subject is beautiful he has a way of making it look transcendent. When he draws Bucky, it's like looking at his reflection in rosy candlelight, and Steve can draw Bucky fast, because he's practiced it so many times. His fingers are sometimes cold but always gentle. He can sew stitches after secret fights with thread stolen from the infirmary neater than a sailor, with barely any pain. When he says his prayers and swears to always do good unto others, he means it. Altogether, Steve is a really good guy, and Bucky likes him a lot. Loves him, even. Like a brother.

And of course, Steve’s beautiful, too.

Bucky knows. He knows about sodomites, he knows what goes on near the docks, he knows about queer bars and he knows about Hell, too. He also knows that he is a demon. He knows how wrong everything he wants is. That does not stop him from wanting it.

 

 

 

But he does want girls, too. Kate’s funny, and she’s pretty, but she doesn't much like kissing, and anyway she doesn't like Steve, and a few weeks later her friend Ellen is prettier, so Bucky goes with her. Ellen isn’t like her friends. Ellen is a fast girl. She’s a year older than Bucky, at sixteen, and she tells him she’s already fucked guys. She tells him she wants to fuck him. Ellen has long beautiful hair and long beautiful legs, and Bucky says, yeah, ok. They do fuck, in her bedroom on Sunday night while her parents are out, and Bucky had to sneak out of the orphanage to get here but it was so worth it. Ellen has rubbers, and she lets him come inside her and when he does he cannot help it, it is not like most of the time, he can't think and he _needs_ it, and he bites her neck and she shouts out and comes. It’s incredible, for a few moments. It’s the highest he’s ever been. It tastes different from any other blood, hotter, sweeter, more. He literally feels out of his body with pleasure, it’s like coming again except better, it’s like he’s still coming, it’s like he’s coming non-stop for minutes.

He feels disgusting when it’s over and she’s passed out. He hates himself for hurting her this way, when she was so vulnerable. But she comes round and smiles, says, “Wow, that was incredible. That really was...wow. You sure are something for a beginner, aren’t you?”

Bucky grins because he can’t speak. She says, “You sure you were a virgin?” And he nods, ducks his head faux-shyly and looks up through his lashes because that’s obviously what she wants, despite what they’ve just done, and she says, “Well, not any more you’re not,” and they go again, and this time Bucky bites the pillow instead of her. It’s still good, it feels way better than when he jerks off, she is still tight and hot and slick and beautiful, but it’s not the out of body experience he had when he bit her. Ellen giggles at him when he’s spitting the damp pillow out of his mouth. Afterwards she gives him a cigarette, and she laughs again when he coughs at the first drag. It makes him dizzy for a moment too, and sick, but he can’t deny that it’s also kind of a thrill.

So after that, he gets what he needs from girls. Blood tastes sweeter laced with arousal than fear, and he can hurt them less if there’s no fight, if they’re not expecting it. (Victims, that’s the word he’s not thinking. Victims.) He dates them, and uses them. It's wrong, he knows it's wrong to use girls for their bodies. He knows what it makes him. But he doesn't take any nice girl's virginity, he never would, and he never asks them to do things they don't want to. He always gets them home by the time their parents want them back. He never lies to them about what he wants, never tells any girl he’ll love them forever or any of the bullshit that other guys his age use to get into girl's panties. He only ever promises a good time, and tries to make sure they get one, taking them out and treating them well. He makes them laugh, makes them feel special. He takes care to date girls who don’t mind that arrangement, always tries to make sure both parties understand each other. He always does his best to treat the girls to a meal first, as well. Bucky takes his dates dancing, or to the pictures, or a diner. And then afterwards, like most couples their age, they go to a park or a bedroom before parents get home or a secluded corner, and make out, and then, after a short enough period with the right kind of girl, it starts getting heavy. He never takes a risk with knocking a girl up, makes sure he's always got a rubber. When they're fucking, he bites them.

He’s worked out now, from experience and trial and error that as long as someone feels good when his teeth dig in, they feel good when they wake up. Their sensations seem to be amplified; if they’re scared before it makes them terrorised, if they’re aroused sometimes it makes them come. There’s something in his spit, probably, it gets into their bloodstream and fucks with their minds so they’ll stay still for him, and when he’s done it knits them up and makes their last few moments hazy. Anyone could do anything they like to those girls, when he’s finished feeding. They’re vulnerable, unconscious, in the night time out on the street. He knows it, and the what-if’s float through his head sometimes, and they terrify him. They’re vulnerable, so it’s up to him to keep them safe, that’s what’s important. That’s what being friends with Steve has taught him, because Steve has never failed to be a voice for the weak, and he has taught Bucky to listen. So Bucky watches out for them, keeps them out of view and harm's way while he waits until they’ve come around. When they do, he tells them they’ve fainted from the alcohol or the exercise of dancing, when he made them come, something. Most times they make up their own explanations, stumble their own flustered apologies. He just nods, smiles, laughs, tells them it’s fine, that they were only gone for a few seconds, reassures them that they didn’t drool, but looked flushed and gorgeous, because most often it’s the truth.

He usually can't get an opportunity to drink from a girl too early on in his mayfly relationships, but he also doesn’t stay with any of the girls for more than a month or so, because he’s sure it makes them weak to have him take from them, and he does not ever want to be responsible for a woman to coming to harm. He may be a devil, but he can still be a gentleman. However, because of the space that sometimes stretches to weeks between times he can feed from girls, he learns to take more than he ever did from the bullies, to think through the lust, for their blood and their bodies, to time it just right so that he gets enough to last him for more than a week, but making sure the girls stay healthy. It's hard, and he's often unable to think of anything but blood in the hungry times between girlfriends, but he has to try.

Sometimes, of course, he breaks, and takes from bullies. Sometimes he takes from guys who have reputations for treating their dames badly, for hitting them, sleeping around when they're supposed to have a partner, or guys who won't take no for an answer. He takes from guys who like to go around beating on coloured people, or the sodomites in the back alleys. He drinks from a lot of bad men, leaves them vulnerable, shaken, alone and blood-stained in back-alleys all over Brooklyn, but he can't honestly say he feels guilty about that all that often. The fact is, he has to live somehow. Someone has to look out for Steve. He still tries to be as good as he can be, apart from what he can’t help. He tries not to make terrorising the neighbourhood as a vigilante into a habit. He does not have to hurt other people, he does not have to succumb to temptation, he does not have to infect others with his evil.

The thirst becomes manageable, more or less.

His other wants do not. His other wants get harder. He's sixteen now, and he thought he might grow out of it, or maybe find a nice girl who could distract him from it, but he sure as hell hasn't so far. It's just getting harder to ignore. Because Steve is -

He’s -

Steve is an angel. His eyes are deep warm blue like pools of seawater and his hair is fine and soft and gold and lustrous like spun silk and his skin is milk-white and smooth. He is tiny, and he fits so well in Bucky’s arms. Bucky can hold all that he cares about in the world when they lie together in winter in the cold, he can cover Steve up safe with his body and pretend like there’s a way they can stay like this forever. Bucky doesn't need to sleep as much as normal people, so he's spent countless hours holding Steve's sleeping form in the dark, stroking his hair, his face, listening to his breathing. Darkness with Steve is a sanctuary. When Steve laughs it’s like the sky at noon in summer. Steve gets angry and he’s terrifying, because his righteous rage is like a fire that’s held in the core of him that will never go out. People are cruel to him, bullies and thugs and scum, and he does not fold up in sadness, he fights back. Steve is good, that’s the essence of it. It spills out of him and it warms everyone around him. It is impossible not to love him. He is so good, but he just doesn’t see it.

Bucky can’t have, but he wants anyway. And he knows that Steve feels the same, because the spring they’re sixteen, the first year they move out of the dormitory and get their own room, he makes sure to always take off his shirt slow and in full view of Steve, and every single time he does it, he hears Steve’s heartbeat pick up. Steve doodles eyes and mouths, hands and torsos in the corners and around the edges of his drawing books, and all of them are Bucky’s. Sometimes Steve’s eyes track pretty women down the street, sure, but mostly they track Bucky. They sleep in the same bed sometimes, because Steve needs to stay warm in winter, no matter what position they start the night in, Steve's limbs are always wrapped around him like vines by morning. When the nights get hotter, he lounges around without a shirt on almost as much as Bucky, his bones bird-thin and beautiful, and he doesn't preen, because he doesn't think he's good-looking, but he never takes care to be decent either. Bucky wants, and he knows Steve wants, and it does not go away. It is a constant in his life for months, until finally he cannot go without anymore, and he takes.

They're in their bedroom in the orphanage after lights out, in summer when Steve’s breathing's still good and they're both shirtless. Two days ago Bucky got his hand up Suzy Akers’ skirt, and he’d been telling Steve about it every night since. Steve always complained, “that’s disgusting Buck” or “you shouldn’t kiss and tell” but he didn’t tell Bucky to shut up, and, though the lights were out, Bucky could still see the blood stain his cheeks red in the low glow from the window. He can hear Steve’s heartbeat spike when he tells him about how last week Linda Parker went down on him, how it felt to have her lipstick red lips around his cock, the way her throat felt, how she sucked him down like his dick was a popsicle, the little slurping noises...and Steve is hanging on his every word. Bucky can hear the blood pumping through his arteries, flowing through his veins. Bucky’s talking about how he kissed her afterwards, and he could taste himself on her.

(He doesn’t tell Steve how after that, he kissed down her body, to her thigh, kissed her sex and licked into her until her heart was beating hard and fast again, and then turned his head into her thigh and bit and drank and drank and drank-)

Steve’s listening to him, and he licks his lips. He does that when he’s nervous sometimes, but Bucky doesn’t think that’s why he’s doing it now.

Bucky’s talking shit like this, and Steve’s staring at his mouth, and he’s licking his lips. They’re on opposite sides of the room on separate beds, but Bucky gets up, and it’s quiet now he’s not talking, it’s late at night and the room smells like clean cotton and sweat. He walks across the room to where Steve’s sitting, one leg hiked up and the other trailing down so his toes brush the floor. Steve hasn’t broken eye contact with him. His heartbeat’s thrumming it’s slightly uneven lub-dub faster than normal, but he doesn’t smell of fear, or worry. He actually smells a lot more of the other thing. When Bucky reaches out his hand and places it on Steve’s knee, draws his leg down the bed, Steve gasps a little, and now Bucky’s closer he can see the hard-on that Steve was using his shin to hide. Steve’s lips stay parted, and he says, “Buck-” and then Bucky’s leaning down and kissing him and kissing him and it’s bliss.

He's always known he's a sinner, has always known, so he probably doesn't deserve something this good, but it doesn't matter because Steve wants it too so he can't help taking it anyway. Bucky knows it’s dangerous and stupid. They have to hide it from everyone - they live in a Catholic orphanage, the Sunday services are fire and brimstone, and no one here can ever know. The other boys are their friends, but any one could turn on the pair of them at any moment if they found out. They both know that inverts get taken to an asylum, where some people say they get fixed and others say they get punished. Obviously, Bucky can never let that happen to Steve. Ever. So they never so much as hold hands in public, they spend plenty of time away from each other and with other boys, and Bucky chases skirt. Of course, that’s not optional for him. He needs willing warm bodies to survive. Steve doesn’t like it, but he thinks that he knows why Bucky does it, he thinks it’s to throw off any suspicions the people around them could be harbouring, and he doesn’t give Bucky shit for it. The rest of the world does that to the both of them, so they will never do it to each other. They will never blame each other for what they cannot help.

But Steve doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what Bucky is, how he survives. Why he’s so much stronger than the others, why he never gets sick even when Steve’s nearly dying, why he doesn’t need to eat much or sleep much. He doesn’t know that Bucky only ever drinks from the girls he spends the night with. He doesn’t know that Bucky never fucked anyone after they kissed when they were sixteen, and it kind of breaks Bucky’s heart to let him think that there’s any way he’s not satisfied with Steve as he is. Steve hates the way he looks, he hates how frail he is. Bucky thinks he’s the most exquisitely beautiful person imaginable. He still has to let Steve think he’s screwing other people. And Steve doesn’t protest, because he thinks that’s what he deserves, and he thinks Bucky deserves better, deserves more. Yeah, it breaks his heart a little.

Steve can’t know, though, he can’t know what Bucky is. If Steve calls him demon -

If Steve recoils from him in disgust -

If Steve leaves him -

So Bucky can only try to let Steve know, with every touch, how much he loves him, whenever they are alone together. He feeds himself up fat like a tick once a week so that he never gets hungry when he’s with Steve - because he will never hurt Steve, he will never use him, he will never ever let Steve be hurt for him, and he will never threaten Steve’s already fragile health. He drinks enough that his teeth don’t feel buzzing and sensitive even when he’s kissing down Steve’s neck, enough that his skin’s warm and his cheeks are flushed. He fills himself with blood, and he wants to pour himself, his health and his strength into Steve’s bird-wing bones. Steve is -

He’s -

Before their first kiss, Steve and Bucky are best friends. They look out for each other. Bucky gets Steve out of fights and Steve draws pictures and Bucky tells stories and Steve laughs at his jokes and it’s brilliant. Afterwards, it’s still like that, but they do other things together too. Bucky presses “I love you,” into Steve’s skin, he whispers it behind Steve’s ear and into his mouth until Steve believes it. Their fist kiss was in summer and Bucky kisses him in secret all autumn, they touch each other with hands and mouths and he says those three words and others, he says everything he feels the best way he can, he says, “You’re it for me,” “I’m yours forever,” and “I’ll stay with you ‘till the end,” and Steve says, “I’m yours,” “I love you more than anything” and “I trust you,” and Bucky knows it’s true. This is what they whisper in the night time; in the day time they call each other “dumb punk” and “stupid” and “idiot face” and that’s true as well. That’s just how they are. It’s good.

Before their first kiss, Bucky would die for Steve. After their sixteenth summer, Bucky would kill for him. He’s Bucky’s everything. He’s Bucky’s forever. He is Bucky’s world.

 

 

 

Their sixteenth winter, like every winter, the world comes so close to ending, but this time Steve isn’t getting better. Last year he had tuberculosis, and this year it’s come back, and it’s stronger than before. Steve is stronger too though - Bucky’s been giving him as much of the food he doesn’t need as he can for the last three years, pretends to eat enough that Steve doesn’t think he’s starving, and it’s helped. He’s bigger and taller and stronger than he was before. Bucky knows he’s going to live. But the nuns call in the doctor, and the doctor shakes his head and they can’t afford the medicine anyway, and so the nuns call in the priest who gives Steve his last rights, chanting useless words and Bucky opens the windows of the infirmary afterwards because the incense made Steve cough, he doesn’t care how holy it is. He makes sure that they let him stay near Steve whenever he doesn’t have to go to lessons or mass, and then, as the days draw on and Steve gets worse, they let him stay with Steve through lessons too. People here know they are at least as close as brothers. They just don’t know exactly how close.

It’s dark outside the window, snow is falling past and settling on the sill and Steve hasn’t been out of bed in a month when his heart beat slows down to almost nothing. The slightly uneven lub-dub that Bucky’s been sleeping next to for as much of his life as he can remember, the muscle keeping everything he loves alive, it’s stopping.

This cannot happen.

Bucky knows he heals fast, and he knows that his spit makes people heal fast too. He knows that vampires are supposed to turn people by feeding them blood. Bucky is not stupid. He can put two and two together.

He bites his wrist open until blood flows down to his elbow and the pain doesn’t even register. He puts his wrist over Steve’s mouth, blood fills his mouth and Steve is just present enough still to swallow instead of choke.

The change is almost instantaneous. Bucky can actually hear Steve’s heartbeat speed up, go back to it’s regular if still uneven beat, and after three breaths his breathing’s stronger too. Bucky takes his wrist away, and prays some of the most sincere and fervent prayers of his life. A few moments later, Steve gasps and his eyes flicker open, and his eye’s meet Bucky’s, and Bucky says,   “Shh, shh, you’re ok. You’re gonna be ok now, I got you.”

Steve says, “Bucky,” reaches out his hand and swipes Bucky’s cheek and there are tears, he’s crying. “Don’t,” Steve says, and it’s firmer than he’s been able to sound for a week now, and Bucky buries his head in Steve’s side and cries and cries. Because his best friend is alive, he’s ok, he’s going to be ok. And because Bucky’s poisoned him now, by sharing his blood, he’s sullied the best person in existence. What if he’s polluted Steve’s immortal soul? Is it worth Steve’s life if he’s infected him with his own sickness, his own demonic monstrosity, if he’s stolen Steve’s chance at heaven? He’s always been Hell bound, but Steve is an angel, and Bucky’s pulling him down with him. Steve breathes, stronger than he has for days, strokes Bucky’s hair, and it comforts him.

Steve gets better within a week. Bucky stays close to him, smiles and jokes and laughs and does not let Steve see how he’s constantly watching him for signs of change, for any difference in mannerisms or behaviour. If Steve is like him now, he’ll need blood. Now he’s got his head on straight, Bucky knows that he may be demon but Steve will never be anything other than good, and if he needs Bucky to go out and bleed some dame out into a flask for him to drink, Bucky will do it until he can do it for himself. And if Steve never forgives him, he will go. If Steve decides to tell them all what he is, he’ll let them do anything to him, as long as they don’t hurt Steve.

But Steve’s behaviour doesn’t change. He doesn’t act thirsty, he doesn’t want blood. He eats food and gains weight, he’s smiling and laughing for real. They make Bucky go back to lessons when Steve can get up and walk, and the first Sunday Steve comes back to mass, Bucky thanks God. He doesn’t know whether God listens to whatever Bucky is, but he prays anyway. When they’re both in their shared room, alone together for the first time after Steve’s been ill, they curl up around each other in one of their beds, and Bucky pushes his face into Steve’s shoulder and breathes in the smell of him that is unlike anyone else, and listens to his lopsided beloved heartbeat and does not ever want to loose him.

And then Steve pulls back from him so he can meet Bucky’s eyes and give him a Look, and he says, “We need to talk about what you did.”

If Steve does not want him, he will go. But oh Jesus, Mary and all the saints, it’ll break his heart.

“I’m sorry.”

Steve frowns, says, “I’m not mad at you Buck. I’m pretty sure you saved my life, right? I just want to know how.”

Bucky can’t meet his eyes, but there is nowhere else he can look, so he closes his eyes.

“I don’t-” His voice cracks, and he can’t speak.

“Hey, it’s all right Bucky. Like I said, I don’t mind. Just tell me honestly, did you steal the money?”

Wait.

“What?”

“For the medicine you gave me.” Steve gives him an affectionate look that nonetheless conveys that he is not impressed. “Come on Bucky, I’m not stupid, I know I didn’t get better like that on my own. Just tell me, where did the money come from?”

Bucky laughs almost hysterically until he can force himself to calm down, and now Steve looks mildly concerned. He clears his throat, thinks on his feet, says, “I didn’t steal it. I’ve been saving money for a while now. From that lifting I did for the grossers, you remember?”

Steve says, “Mm-hm” and is not convinced.

“I’m telling the truth! And then I found a guy who’d let me owe him, but I’ll pay the money back, when I said I would, and he’s not the type who’d chase me, I swear. I talked to the pharmacist two streets over and he told me what to buy. I wasn’t sure it would work as good as this, I’m so glad it did. You feel all better now?”

Steve gives him one last Look, then lets it slide, because he knows Bucky’s not telling the truth but he’s not sure which part of what he’s said is a lie. “Yeah, I’m good as new.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

And Steve just harumphs and wriggles further into the space directly in front of Bucky in between his arms, and Bucky’s chest feels full and warm where Steve presses against it.

 

 

 

Their fist kiss was at sixteen and they make love as often as they can after that. Bucky's seventeen and it's summer, and for a year now, he’s lain with Steve every night and held him in his arms. They sleep face to face in one bed, swapping beds every night so that both look slept in come wash-day. The first and last thing they see every day is the other. They kiss whenever they can, whenever they are alone and Steve’s mouth is not bloody, and they kiss most everywhere, they use hands on each other, thrust together and catch the mess in rags. Bucky’s always careful, he’s too strong. Holding back isn’t hard though, or at least, it’s as hard as not drinking is, and if he can do one he makes himself do the other. Steve likes to use his mouth, and fuck if his lips don’t look gorgeous stretched around Bucky’s cock like they’re fit to burst. Steve likes to settle into it, he likes to take his time, lets his eyes drift closed until those long lashes brush his cheeks, and he doesn’t like being guided but he loves Bucky’s hands in his hair, and he likes Bucky to tug, hard, and to scrunch up his fists full of the long fine strands and pull. Bucky doesn’t go down on Steve for months even after the kiss, because Steve dick smells salty and rich, so so good and hot and thick and full with blood, and he will never, he will never hurt Steve. He will not risk that taste making him want to bite.

But Steve thinks he’s fucking other women behind his back, Steve doesn’t think he’s beautiful, and Bucky cannot tell him categorically that it’s a lie because he cannot tell Steve the truth. So Bucky gives Steve everything he can to make him feel loved, he whispers the words and touches him like a sculpture and in winter he goes down on Steve under the covers, careful and slow little licks and then more and more and more, swallowing but not biting, not even grazing with his teeth. His teeth are humming and buzzing and sensitive and he wants to bite but he will not, and every time he moves his lips or tongue over them he wants to mewl. Fuck, it’s incredible. It’s a tease, it’s torture but it’s sweet and he sucks and licks, greedy like he’s starving, and drinks Steve’s come when he spills and it is rich, bitter, salty and filling and although the taste of it’s not right, the feeling of it going down his throat is so close, so close to what he wants that he comes without touching himself. And after that he does it every chance he gets and Steve’s face scrunches up as he holds back the noises, and he pets Bucky’s cheeks, strokes his eyes and traces his fingers over his stretched lips.

So it's been a while now, it's been almost a whole year since their first kiss, and they've done most other things, but they haven't penetrated each other yet. Bucky, he told Steve he wasn’t going to until they were both of age. It feels too much like a step further than they've been, to him. He couldn't explain it to Steve, but Steve just said fine, so long as when they were both of age Bucky would “finally stop making excuses and treating me like a precious doll,” and Bucky smirked slow and dirty and said, “But you are my precious doll, doll,” and Steve bit his lip hard enough to bruise and he had to say he’d been punched.

So now they’re going to do it, they’re going to go further than either of them ever have - or, well, with a guy at least, on Bucky's side, though he's pretty sure Steve was a virgin in every way before him and Bucky. And it's important, somehow, because other boys help each other out, of course they do, that’s normal, someone else's hand can just make all the difference, some nights, and it’s not unheard of for guys to suck each other off, but guys don’t kiss, and they sure as hell don’t put their dicks inside each other. That’s what inverts do, but Bucky’s going to do it to Steve, even though he knows that this is wrong, he knows about sodomites and queer bars and back alleys and Hell and he knows he’s a demon. He doesn’t want to drag Steve down with him, but Steve says that being inverted can’t be wrong because God gave them each other, there’s no way He’d be cruel enough to make them like this and then forbid them from each other. Bucky doesn’t know, because the best person he knows nearly dies every winter and learned to fight because he couldn’t run without wheezing, so maybe God is that cruel after all. But he supposes that Steve hasn’t actually died yet, and also Steve seems to think that this is ok, so what does Bucky know. Steve wants this and Bucky wants this, and that's going to have to be reason enough because he can’t resist any longer.

It’s the fourth of July and they were allowed to watch the fireworks until midnight, and they’re allowed to stay in bed until nine tomorrow morning. They watched the city sky light up from the playground, boys clumped together under blankets and Steve is cold in Bucky’s arms from the night air. Under the covers, no one can tell that Steve’s hands are holding Bucky’s where they wrap around his torso. Bucky’s legs are crossed but Steve’s leaning far enough back into his lap that Bucky can rest his chin on his fluffy blond mess of hair. It’s ok. It’s cold and it’s dark and no one’s looking at them anyway. It’s Steve’s birthday, and they can have this.

When the time is up not all of the lights are over, but they go to bed anyway, and they aren’t complaining nearly as loud as the other boys.

God, he burns for this. Steve’s been real smug recently. He's wanted them to go further for a while now and in the lead up to his birthday he's been well aware that he's about to get his way. Steve is a saint, but he knows about back alleys and sodomites too. They live in New York city. Recently, when Bucky sucks his cock Steve strokes one hand around his own asshole, pushes his fingers inside himself. He bought Vaseline from the chemists and he keeps it under the floorboards of their room, and he slicks up his fingers and pushes into himself while Bucky drinks and licks and sucks and grinds down into the bedsheets. The noises he makes - they’re quiet, they’re always quiet, they have to be because the walls are as thin as planks and four boys sleep in the two rooms on either side, but the noises Steve makes when he fingers himself sound like muffled screams. He always finds one point inside himself and presses and rubs at it, over and over until he comes, and when he does his whole body goes boneless.

Now Steve wants to know what Bucky’s dick feels like up his ass, and Bucky will do anything for Steve to make him feel good. He’s used his own fingers on Steve before, he knows where Steve needs it. They go up to their room, brush their teeth and change into sleep clothes that will only come off again in minutes, for the sake of appearances, on the off-chance that someone barges in. They’ll say that one of them had a nightmare, to explain sharing a bed in July. They press into each other, grind their hips in the darkness while the noises of the other boys going to sleep fades in bumps and rustles into nothing, and no one comes to check on them. Finally, when it’s silent apart from their breathing, Bucky pulls of Steve’s shirt and then his own, they kick off their shorts and Steve reaches down for the Vaseline and slicks his fingers, and then he starts stretching himself open. Bucky’s told him that he won’t do it if it hurts Steve, but Steve swears it’ll be ok if he stretches himself first, that Bucky’s dick isn’t that much bigger than three fingers anyway. Bucky thinks that actually, it could well still be big enough to hurt, but Steve hates being treated like he’s fragile, so he calls him punk and doesn’t protest any further.

Bucky kisses him now and Steve’s mouth keeps falling open, his lips going slack while his attention’s elsewhere his breathing’s harsh and ragged but his heartbeat’s strong, so Bucky isn’t worried. Steve is healthy and he smells like sex. Bucky waits until Steve’s panting open mouthed more than he is kissing, and then he says, “Now?” and Steve says, “Yeah,” and his voice sounds rough and low, his throat’s humming with it, and fuck, Bucky just wants to put his lips on it, put his teeth on it, just brush them gently, just close to where the blood flows hot...but he won’t. He will not. He takes his dick in his hand and lets Steve use his slippery fingers to slick him up, and a shiver goes through him just at that bare minimum touch. And then Steve rolls Bucky onto his back, sits up above him and carefully, slowly, presses Bucky’s dick into the hot wetness of his body and Bucky’s brain shorts out. It’s tighter than any girl, it’s -

It’s Steve.

Bucky tries hard not to come just from that, thinks about semolina pudding and the Dodgers’ latest scores until Steve’s all the way down, forces himself to calm before looking up at Steve’s face. Steve’s brow is scrunched up a little like he’s in pain, eyes closed, and Bucky says, “Hey, Steve-” before Steve cuts him off, “I’m fine, just gimme a sec.”

“You’re hurting-”

“I’m not, I’m fine. It’ll be good, just give it a minute, just let me-” but the grooves in his forehead haven’t let up any, he’s still in pain, and Bucky moves to pull Steve up and off him. Steve’s eyes flick open and he says, “Hey!” shoves himself back down, and oh fuck, oh God, oh Jesus, that’s so good. Bucky’s head falls back into the pillow with a dull whump, and he can feel Steve’s whole body shudder where he’s holding onto his waist. Steve makes a noise like, “Hah-ah” pulls himself up, pushes himself back down again and bites off groans, moans, little whimpers and mewls. He’s almost always silent but this is so obviously totally new to him, it’s like every movement is a shocking new revelation. It’s all Bucky can do to lie there and force himself not to fuck up into Steve like he wants to, forces his hands to stay loose on Steve’s sides, because he could bruise Steve or break him if he lost himself to this. He lets Steve set his own pace, get used to it in his own time, and waits until Steve does so before he starts thrusting his hips up into Steve’s. He can feel Steve’s hand moving on his own dick between them, he can feel Steve’s rumbling groans where their chests are pressed together. He can feel Steve’s muscles moving around his dick, he can feel the delicious slip and drag. His hands are on Steve’s hips, and he has to remind himself every few moments, when Steve presses down on him in exactly the right way, that he cannot squeeze too tightly, he cannot grip Steve tight enough to hurt him.

Steve’s hips are juddering into his now, his whole body is shuddering and shaking into him, and he holds Steve’s waist as he bends to kiss him, Bucky kisses him back and sucks and licks and fucks upwards until Steve comes all over their stomachs and chests, and he follows a second later, clenches his throbbing teeth hard against each other and holds Steve still, as deep inside him as he can go. Steve falls forward, braces himself on his elbows above Bucky at the last second, presses their foreheads together and they kiss sloppily for a few seconds before Steve huffs out a harsh breath and rests his head in Bucky’s shoulder while he gets his breathing under control. Bucky listens to his heart beat like a bird’s, his breathing slow back to Steve’s shallow normal. He can also almost taste Steve’s blood where it beats, so close to his mouth in Steve’s neck, but he cannot take so he turns his head and kisses Steve’s pliant mouth, and it’s flushed and hot and wet and tastes enough like what he needs that he can find some satisfaction in sucking Steve’s tongue into his mouth. He stops before his teeth get sharp with need.

Steve passes out not long after, and Bucky takes a minute to breathe before he gently slides his body off, goes to get a washcloth to clear up the worst of the mess before it dries. He curls around Steve’s body as he sleeps.

In the morning Steve has bruises on his hips. Bucky traces them with featherlight fingertip touches in the low light and hates himself, but when Steve wakes he presses his fingers into them and smiles, kisses Bucky sweetly and chastely, because Steve doesn’t like to kiss with a stale mouth in the morning, even though Bucky swears he doesn’t care. Later, when Henry asks why he’s walking funny Steve says his joints are hurting again, and Bucky catches Steve with his hands in his pockets throughout the day, digging his fingertips into his hips. That night, Bucky raises his eyebrows kissing over the marks, and Steve just smiles wide with eyes closed, content. He wriggles his hips insistently and pouts, but Bucky won’t fuck him, because despite his protests he knows that Steve’s been sore all day. He insists that, “it was a good kind of sore, honest to God, Bucky, I do want it, I want it, gimme” but Bucky doesn’t care. He won’t draw blood. He won’t risk it. Instead, he licks around Steve’s hole, kisses it and licks into it, uses his tongue to fuck him and Steve comes with barely a touch to his dick, and the taste is foreign enough from blood that Bucky can stop his teeth getting long and sharp, can still kiss Steve properly after.

A few nights after that, Bucky caves to curiosity and the obvious pleasure of Steve’s reactions, and asks Steve to show him how to finger himself open. He hadn’t wanted to before - it’s kinda unnatural, and it’s dirty, and Bucky already has enough unsavoury addictions, he doesn’t need more. But Steve does it, Steve loves it, and Steve’s not an invert or a nymphomaniac for it, he’s still Steve. Bucky knows that his reasoning’s shaky, that the rules are different for someone like him compared to someone like Steve, that when you’re as pure as Steve is the same acts have different motivations. When Steve fights, it’s to save people who are hurting and when Bucky does it it’s to hurt people who hurt Steve. When Steve’s polite to women it’s because he’s a gentleman and when Bucky does it it’s to get into their bedrooms, into their bloodstreams. But Steve keeps offering to show him how, not with words but subtle touches, looks and glances, and he does not want Steve to think that he sees this as wrong. He already thinks Bucky fucks other women, he already thinks he’s a burden, he already thinks he’s ugly. Bucky will not let him think he’s dirty too.

Steve’s slim fingers slip inside him, and at first it feels weird, uncomfortable, foreign and odd. But Steve talks him through it, says, “Just give it a moment. You need to relax. Stop squirming. Just stay still and let me do the moving, just lie back and take it,” and then Bucky does, and Steve’s gentle fingers of artist’s hands rub against his inner walls, stroke and caress and somehow it’s loving. He gets used to it fast, and then Steve has to hold him down with his other arm to stop him squirming up into his fingers instead of away. And then Steve says, “Ok, you’re gonna like this next bit. You ready?” meets his eyes challengingly, and it doesn’t matter what he’s gonna do next when he uses that tone, Bucky just nods, and Steve’s fingers dig a little deeper, twist, search, locate and rub, and fuck. Bucky’s saying, “Ha, yes, yes, fuck, fuck yes more, please, there, right there, oh god, please” and Steve has to lean his whole weight down onto his forearm to get Bucky to stay still. There are lights behind his eyes, there’s sparks up his spine, his skin’s on fire. Steve says, teasing little shit, he says, “Oh, you want a little more?” and before Bucky can answer he adds another finger, presses harder, crook his fingers and rubs and Bucky jerks his cock a couple of times and then comes. Steve kisses him while he still can’t breathe right, strokes his other hand up Bucky’s back and makes him shiver because the sparks that were flowing under his skin moments ago have left him sensitive. “Good right?” Steve asks and Bucky can only laugh breathlessly and disbelievingly, because, fuck, yeah, that was good.

 

 

 

After Steve’s eighteenth birthday, Bucky and Steve start moving out of the orphanage that has been home for most of their lives. Mother Superior had been kind enough to let Bucky stay the few months he probably is older than Steve so that they could stay together, and Bucky used the time to find an apartment for them in Brooklyn. It’s where Steve had lived with his mama before she died. He doesn’t say anything, hasn’t cried for it since the first year, but Bucky knows he misses home. He would too, if he’d ever had another. So they move into a tiny tenement building in Brooklyn, and sure the water’s cold and the neighbours are noisy, but none of them are a patch on an orphanage full of adolescent boys, so it doesn’t matter to Bucky and Steve. In winter, they heat the water in a bucket over the stove for baths and in summer they don’t bother.

Bucky gets a job down at the docks lifting crates for cargo ships and Steve works freelance as an artist. He does magazine covers, adverts, posters, all of it. Bucky’s always known that Steve was good, but he was perfectly prepared to support them both here, if he needed to. He’s so glad for Steve that he doesn’t have to. It makes Steve feel good, to be bringing home as much money as Bucky most days, you can see it in him.

Times are hard, the Great Depression is everywhere and the second Great War’s on the horizons, to the east and the west of America, but it doesn’t matter to them. Steve loves drawing, so it's not much skin off his back to draw eight hours a day instead of six, and it means he makes a little extra. Bucky gets a promotion, starts working as a clerk in the office at the docks. He always was good at numbers. It means a rise in his wages, and he gets to stay in the warm and dry most days, though he still takes extra work lifting in the summer so he'll have spare come winter, when Steve is most likely to get sick. All in all, they're lucky. They almost always have enough money for Steve to eat. Bucky tells him he picks up breakfast travelling in in the mornings, buys lunch at the docks and is always too full for dinner. He eats when Steve cooks something for him specially, but other than that he survives only on blood. He doesn’t need to eat, and he doesn’t suffer any without solid food - in fact, he thinks he’s actually faster, more awake. Maybe he’s saving energy by not digesting unnecessary food - he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care. It saves them a lot of money, Bucky not eating, so he almost always has enough for medicine when Steve’s ill, and that’s the most important thing. Bucky will never get desperate enough to give Steve his blood again, if he can help it.

Bucky still drinks once a week, and now he’s away from the orphanage and the Catholicism he can go to bars, find a new girl every time, and it’s loose and immoral and disgusting but now he can be sure that he’s not hurting any of them long term, so it’s what he does. He sweet talks, dances and kisses, buys drinks and licks his lips, and if they like him he takes them to their homes or to back alleys, kisses and maybe fingers fast girls until they feel good, and then bites them out of the light of the streetlights. They cum, they forget, and then he walks them home, or helps them find their friends in dance halls, or politely closes the door on their apartments. And he goes home to Steve.

Bucky has never drunk from Steve, and he never will. It does not matter that Steve will forget afterwards, that Bucky could do it while they fucked and Steve might not even know it. It does not matter that he’d only have to do it once and he’d have the memory of the taste forever, because he will not hurt Steve, ever. It does not matter that he’s licked Steve’s cock and his lips and tongue and ass so often, he can almost imagine what he tastes like underneath his skin. He’ll never know. And Steve will never know what he is.

 

 

 

Except, it does happen once. When they are nineteen, and Steve’s managed to get beat up by the one asshole left in the neighbourhood that Bucky hasn’t drunk from yet, who isn’t instinctively scared of him. Steve’s got a black eye and a split lip and cut knuckles, and a bruise on his ribs where the guy was kicking him before Bucky arrived and had to seriously concentrate on not killing the guy. Bucky’s cleaning Steve’s hands now, wiping them as gently as he can and ignoring the gorgeous smell of the blood, telling Steve, “You’re such a Goddamn idiot, why do you have to do shit like this?”

To which Steve replies, “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” like he does every time Bucky blasphemes, even though Bucky’s done it since he was ten and both of them do it when they’re fucking.

“Stevie, will you just hear me out for one second, please? Because I know that you can’t stand by and ignore bullies, but would it kill you to just wait a few extra seconds for me to get over to you before you run your smart mouth and get it punched-”

“Oh, shut up, I’ll show you my smart mouth,” Steve says, leans forward and kisses him.

Steve’s mouth tastes of Steve’s blood. Steve’s mouth tastes of copper and honey at the same time, his lip is hot and wet and Bucky’s sucking, it tastes of salt and sugar and sex and Steve. It’s better, it’s better than any other taste, it’s hitting somewhere deeper in his head than anything else ever has, because he’s always known the exact smell of Steve, his sweat, his hair, his seed, that’s always been home, and this is the essence of that. It’s familiar and comforting and erotic. He’s groaning into Steve’s mouth, his dick is hard and his teeth are throbbing, sensitive, sharp -

He pulls away from Steve fast before the urge to tug on Steve’s lip with his sharpened teeth overwhelms him. He can’t. Won’t. Steve’s eyes are blue and beautiful, and when he opens them he blinks and smirks slowly.

“Woah, Bucky, you look incredible. Your eyes...” Steve reaches out to touch his cheekbones, where he can feel he’s flushed, and he resists jerking back only by pure willpower, only because Steve won’t understand that it’s because Bucky’s a monster, he’ll think that he’s the one who’s done something wrong. “You like my smart mouth that much, huh?” Steve’s eyes flick down to his lap where his pants are tented, and he meets Bucky’s eyes again, licks his lips, and Bucky can’t help but zeroing in on the blood still on them.

“Yeah, Stevie. I like your mouth that much.” Bucky is careful to breathe as little as possible as he finishes patching Steve up, careful to ignore how much better the smell of Steve’s blood is now that he knows the taste. When they go to bed afterwards, Bucky dodges Steve’s mouth before he can kiss him again, tells him, “Let me show you my smarts now, yeah?” as he lowers himself down Steve’s body to his cock, and it’s harder than ever not to bite, now that he knows how good it would be if he did...but it would hurt Steve, so he doesn’t.

After that Bucky’s careful never to kiss Steve when he’s bleeding again. The only thing he ever drinks from Steve after that is his come. He won’t take more, he won’t bite Steve. He does go out to find the guy that hurt Steve the next night, just to be sure that there won’t be any more trouble from him, but apart from that he sticks to his resolution to only bite girls, because he can make it nice for them. And now they’re older, he thinks Steve believes that he’s not fucking anyone else, that he only dances and flirts to throw off suspicion. Bucky tells him how he’s never fucked anyone else with anything more than his fingers since they were sixteen, and only then to keep up appearance, how he’d rather he didn’t even have to do that, and he thinks Steve believes him. And it’s something Bucky’s had to work on, Steve’s belief that he can be more than enough for Bucky in himself. Bucky’s got little habits, though. He makes sure to tell Steve he’s gorgeous at least once a day, when they’re alone. Whispers “I love you,” in the silence after sex. Worships him with his touches as explicitly as words. Touches him every second he can, though that one’s at least as much for Bucky as for Steve.

There’s one thing he’s found, though, which works particularly well. He licks and sucks and does not bite down on Steve’s neck, works himself up until he knows that his pupils are blown and his cheeks are flushed because of the way Steve’s hands trace his face, until there is real, raw and desperate hunger in his eyes, and he tells Steve, over and over, that he is beautiful, that Bucky wants him so much, that he needs him. He begs for relief from Steve even whilst he’s fucking him, and he’ll never get it, not what he wants the way he wants it, but it doesn’t matter because Steve likes it so much when Bucky gets needy for him. He loves when Bucky begs for it, paws at Steve like he’ll never get enough, whines like a good time girl, moans like a whore. Bucky wants, and it makes Steve feel wanted. He mumbles the words, “gorgeous, so gorgeous, Steve, you’re so beautiful, I want you so much,” into the pulse in Steve’s neck where the blood beats so close, and it is in no way a lie.

Yeah, Steve struts a more taller nowadays. You’d think he’d get into even more fights, but he doesn’t. Now, he only hurls fists when someone else's honour is impeached upon, and Bucky’s damn glad of it, because he can’t bear the mixed agony and delight of bandaging up Steve’s bloody body too often. Steve’s more confident now, a little taller than he was, a little fuller, a little stronger, and so fucking gorgeous. Every one of his lines is God’s brushstroke, his every movement is an angel’s grace. The night after they move in, Bucky’s overcome with it, and he falls to his knees in front of Steve and says that he wishes he could marry Steve, and Steve says, “I know Buck. I do, too.”

Bucky repeats, “I do,” and he’s worried because it’s goofy and juvenile, but Steve’s pupils dilate and it becomes solemn and grave. Steve sinks to his knees in front of Bucky, kisses him, whispers “I do, I do,” and it’s real. They don’t need vows. Together sickness and in health is a well established part of their lives. To love, honour and obey Steve is the code Bucky lives by. They fuck and it’s not consummation, they are already one, they have always been two halves of one, since before either of them can properly remember, not even God will ever be able to part them now, and there is no way this will not last for all of both of their lives, as Bucky whispers, “‘Till the end of the line,” into Steve’s shoulder.

Bucky thinks maybe the way he loves Steve is obsession, maybe it’s fixation, but he doesn’t know because he doesn’t have much else to compare it too. He doesn’t care. Steve is worth all of it, Steve is worth all of the love in Bucky’s sick soul.

That apartment becomes the most important place in the world. There’s no hot water and the walls are cardboard, the radiator makes odd noises and drips occasionally, and the drafts are something awful. They have a beat up sofa with stained upholstery covered in a thick blanket. They have kitchen table and two chairs that match neither each other nor the table. They have a stove and a sink and about three pans, maybe five plates and probably enough cutlery. They usually have enough food in the cupboards. They have soap, razors, a bathtub. They have a pack of cards and a wireless. And they have one bed. It is an act of defiance, of recklessness, the only one that they can have, because it is also a secret. No one else is ever allowed to come into their apartment, ever, no one else has since they’ve moved in. Steve has friends and Bucky has associates from the orphanage, but they meet in diners or dance-halls. They do not kiss or touch or lean on each other in public, they do not flirt or hug or speak of love. But inside this apartment, they are two halves of a whole. Inside this apartment is how they are supposed to be. They kiss and touch all of the time that they can, they sleep in the same bed and share the bathroom and the sofa and the cards. Bucky teaches Steve to dance to the music on the wireless, because Steve was at the orphanage reading while Bucky was out dating good-time girls on Saturdays, but he’s always wanted to move like this with Steve. Bucky sits at Steve’s feet when he’s drawing, or when they’re listening to the radio, and Steve strokes through his hair and it is so good. All of him becomes where Steve’s hand is touching him, and none of the rest matters. His monstrosity, their money, his job, all of it is nothing compared to Steve’s hand in his hair, his fingers parting the strands, his fingernails scritching lines into Bucky’s scalp. The sun pouring through the windows, warming his flesh and Steve’s hand warming his mind and his soul, soaked in heat and pleasure, this is how it’s supposed to be.

 

 

 

Though he’d sworn to himself to never let it happen again, Bucky’s forced to feed Steve his blood once again, when they’re twenty. Steve’s choking on fluid-filled lungs, seeing things that aren’t there and crying out for his ma. He’s in unbearable pain and Bucky has the power to stop it. He’s disgusting, he’s a parasite and a demon, an unnatural aberration, and he’s selfish because he can’t let Steve go and be with God in heaven like he deserves. Bucky is a heathen, Bucky is a blasphemer because he’d rather have Steve, alive and healthy, than God’s approval and paradise after death for himself, and apparently now he’s willing to risk staining Steve’s immortal soul to keep him alive. But he will risk that because he’s done it before and it didn't change Steve, he’s never been anything less than himself, and he cannot accept the idea of a world without Steve Rogers.

So Bucky goes out and feeds off two different girls, as much as he dares until the light starts looking different and his muscles itch with strength, and then he goes home to Steve and splits the veins of his wrist, presses the bleeding gash to the rim of a cup until it’s full. He knows that Steve will not be able to taste the blood on his tongue when he wakes because Steve always complains about how his illnesses mean he can’t enjoy his food even when he gets his appetite back, so Bucky puts the cup Steve’s mouth and lets him drink. Three hours later, Steve’s coherent, sitting up and asking for solid food, “some bread at least, come on Buck I’m not an infant,” his temperature is normal and his colour’s healthy again, and Bucky thinks maybe it’s worth being like this if it keeps Steve alive. Maybe this is in some way part of how things between them is right. Because Bucky is sinful, but Steve is good enough that it doesn’t matter. Steve stays healthy and Bucky stays good. Or good enough. And in this apartment they have a sanctuary.

 

 

 

When they're twenty-one, the war blows in from the horizon. Steve wants to join, of course he does. Bucky does not. Bucky does not care about Poland or Germany or Britain, he doesn’t care much for America for that matter. One thing matters, and that’s Steve. But then the draft letter comes, and he doesn’t have a choice.

He has to leave Steve.


	2. Chapter 2

When Bucky goes off to war, he has one aim: to keep himself alive long enough to get home to Steve. Steve’s not safe alone in Brooklyn. Steve’s not safe alone anywhere. Bucky has to be there, always, to protect him. So he’ll fight for the US of A, but if he sees a single opportunity to desert, he’ll take it - the first time the chaos of battle descends, the first time he has leave, he’ll run. It’d be good if he could get himself missing in action, presumed dead, because then they won’t be looking for him, but he’ll take less. He’ll get away and get home to Steve, somehow. It doesn’t matter where he ends up. Bucky’s not like other guys. He doesn’t need to eat, he doesn’t need much sleep. If he’s fed, he can run for hours and not get tired. They’ll never be able to catch him. He’ll find Steve and they’ll go somewhere. Anywhere. He’ll keep Steve safe. So in basic he fights well, with all of his strength for the first time in his life, and he is unbeatable. He shoots with eyes that can see in the dark and hands that are unnaturally strong and still and he hits the target every time. He gets promoted to Sergeant before he even ships out.

He leaves Steve and it’s like part of him is being ripped away, but it doesn’t matter because he’ll be back soon, he’ll get Steve back soon. Steve sees him off in the street, but before they left the apartment he spent three hours kissing every part of Bucky’s body and making him swear to bring every bit of it home. Steve doesn’t know, of course, that Bucky fully intends to do anything to keep his promises. He probably suspects though. Bucky’s never pretended to be the same kind of patriot as Steve is. Or, actually, any kind of patriot. Steve probably doesn’t expect that Bucky would do something as cowardly as shirking his duties, but Steve’s just going to have to be disappointed.

After England they’re sent to Italy , only it’s the north so it’s not warm, it’s freezing. Bucky kills three men in cold blood his first time out, a sniper in a surprise raid on a Nazi military base, covert and behind enemy lines, and he realises that he wasn’t prepared for this. Oh, he can fire a gun better than any other man in the army, but he has never killed anyone before. In Brooklyn he’d have killed any bully that hurt Steve, but he never had to, and these men aren’t hurting Steve. Ok, it’s not like they’re not hurting anyone, they’re soldiers in a war for God’s sake, but then so is he. If they’re evil and deserve to die, how does he not? He’s got Steve to protect, but what if they have someone at home too? Bucky cares about as much for propaganda as he does for anti-homosexual pamphlets. He knows not everyone in Nazi Germany is a Nazi. He knows that some of those soldiers don’t deserve to die. He kills them anyway. He has no choice. Getting home is not optional.

Bombs rain from the skies some days and other days it is just rain. He starts to sleep with a knife under his pillow after the first night time surprise attack that wasn’t started by them, when fourteen men died and the blood fell on Bucky’s sleeping bag. It’s a good job he doesn’t need as much sleep as the others, too, because the nightmares of bombs falling on Brooklyn, and shattering their apartment open, the ruins they see in every town they pass infecting his home town, burning all of Steve drawings and Steve-

They keep him awake.

He gains friends easy by sharing his unneeded rations liberally, and the men in his unit are good men, sure, but he’s still willing to ditch them at the first opportunity he gets to go back home, away from this hell. He doesn’t care what kind of demon he is, he doesn’t belong here. After he gets promoted to a front line unit there are almost always enough enemy soldiers within running distance to find and drink once a week. A month after he arrives on the front line, he’s licking the wound closed on a Nazi’s neck when he realises that he doesn’t have to. The hunger’s quieter now, like it always is after feeding, but it’s not gone. It’s never completely gone, it just stops hurting. He looks down at the dirty, sweaty foot soldier in his lap. The guy was a guard on patrol, and Bucky watched the routine for half an hour before he snatched him when he had the longest time to go before he checks in again, pulled him out of sight of the trenches, into one miraculously whole copse of trees. His hair’s a greasy brown, his skin has freckles. He hasn’t hurt Bucky. He never even had time to shoot at him. But he’s an enemy soldier, and Bucky’s job description is to kill people like him. He has killed people like him. This isn’t even really crossing a line, or at least not one he hasn’t already crossed.

So Bucky bites the wound open again before the man’s eyelids have a chance to flicker open, and drinks more. More, more, more, he’s filling up with it. It’s not like normal, it’s better than normal, it’s better than he’s ever felt before. He’s full of sugary energy, every single part of him is full of power. Every single part of him is stronger, better. Every single part of him is hard as stone and smooth as steel, he is impenetrable, impermeable, he is invulnerable. It’s in his fingers, his toes, his stomach and chest and dick and head, it’s filling up his head with a buzzing rush. This is better than just feeding, this is second only to sex with Steve, and only by a hair’s breadth. This is euphoria.

He is not just drinking and lapping now, he dimly realises, he is sucking, because the body’s heart has stopped beating. He stops, abruptly, when he realises it, drops the corpse. He stares at it and it’s bloodless and pale. Of course it is. He just drank an entire man. He backs away, turns, runs. He jogs then sprints, darting back between patches of woodland back to his own dug-out, and he realises he’s running faster than he ever has before. His startled laugh is snatched by the wind and halted whilst he races past it. The stars blur, his route takes moments where before it took minutes, and he’s slowing to a walk in under a quarter of the time it took him to get out there. He must be thinking faster too, that’s the only way he could have been able to slip himself back into his bedroll in the bare milliseconds before the guy on patrol walks past and a snoring man rolls over, completely unnoticed by either, soundless, a hazy streak.

The hour before dawn, Bucky thinks, and he knows what he’s going to do. Because he’s pretty sure that right now, he could outrun bullets - or at least, dodge them. There is no way that anyone would be able to stop him if he ran. When he runs. He can just break away from the front of the march tomorrow before anyone can blink, and even if they can shoot at him, he can dodge. He’ll probably heal too. He’s always been a faster healer than Steve, faster still if he licks his wounds, but now he’ll probably heal as he’s wounded. So he’ll risk it, he’ll run, he’ll run to a city on the coast, rob someone, catch a boat back to Brooklyn, get to Steve.

But.

But these men are good men. They don’t want to be here any more than he does. And he knows they have sweethearts at home, seeing as most of them won’t shut up about them for five minutes straight. There’s a guy in his unit, John, who can do any accent from any place scarily accurately, from Texas to Germany, and it’s fucking hilarious. There’s another who insists on being addressed solely as Dum Dum, who sleeps in his bowler hat. Michael, he’s Irish like Steve’s mother was and he knows the dirtiest jokes Bucky’s ever heard. Mathew’s nineteen, and he’s a brilliant shot but all he wants is to be an engineer. These guys, they deserve to get home as much as he does. Maybe more, because none of them have ever killed a man with their teeth and drunk his lifeblood while his heart beats it’s last. So he’ll stay with them. He’ll stay until they report back in to base at the end of the month, until they’re out of enemy territory, so that at least he’s not leaving them a man down. He owes them that much. But Steve is more important, so he’ll still go home.

He’s going home at the end of the month.

He works twice as hard as any of the other men for the next week, and it’s apology in advance but they don’t know that, and they appreciate the extra elbow grease. He’s faster in battle than he ever has been before. His jog is a sprint now, and his sprint looks ridiculously fast to human eyes. They comment on it, a few times, but in the confusion of battle most people are focusing too much on the ones shooting at them to notice him. He can’t outrun a bullet, but he can move out of the way if he sees one flying towards him, same way he could dodge a ball thrown to him. He can pull other people out of the way of them, too, and he does. He feeds once more that week, so his strength doesn’t wane like it normally does after a few days, and it feels so good. It feels like this is how he is supposed to be, like his entire life up until now he’s been suffocating, and now he can finally breathe.

But it doesn’t matter, he reminds himself every time he catches himself reveling in it, it doesn’t matter because he’s going home to Steve, back to Brooklyn where he won’t be able to feed like this. And it’ll be worth it, to be near Steve again. He can’t allow himself to get used to this. He has to remember that the price for him feeling like this is other men dying. This is not permanent. The state that he is made to exist in is not this, it is with Steve.

In the meantime, he uses it to watch out for his men, to keep them safe for the time he has left with them.

Nine days before they rotate out, it’s a dusk surprise attack, they’re charging across lines held by the Italians up until now, and they’re winning. The enemy are retreating, scattering, running scared. They’re winning.

And then they’re not. There’s white-blue blasts up ahead. It’s armoured tanks and men with guns which shoot - something; light, energy, heat? - and they’re plowing through the soldiers ahead in moments that would take an ordinary armies triple the time. Then there’s a blast nearby, in front and to the left, and it’s heading for Michael so Bucky moves to throw himself in front of it. Whatever it is, fire, shrapnel, he can take it.

But he can’t. The blast moves faster than a bullet would and it gets to Michael before Bucky can, but it’s radius is still wide enough that it catches him too. The blast burns through this skin, through his muscle and to his bone before he can heal. He can feel it go through his torso, he can feel it hit his ribs, he can feel it _underneath_ them. It’s scorching hot, it’s hotter than hell, it’s crisping his lungs into nothing, it’s cauterising the wounds it makes so he can’t heal like he should. It is the worst pain he has ever known, it makes every other pain into nothing. His eyes feel like they’re boiling out of his head but he can see because his head’s turned to shield his face, his hand in front of his eyes. He can see the outline of his bones through his burning flesh. He can see Michael behind him, and thanks to his enhanced vision he can watch every single millisecond of Michael disintegrating into dust in the harsh illumination of the blast, abject terror on his face.

It ends, an eternity later and a second, and Bucky crumples to the ground.

The world is hazy around him.

Shapes, some colours.

“Surrender”

“Please”

“Camp”

“-Sargent still breathing!”

“Kill-” 

“Keine! Warten!”

There are arms around him and he wants to scream because it hurts so bad to be moved but he can’t because his lungs are ashes. His clothes are burned, the air scours his chest with cold. He’s jostled but he still can’t scream or speak.

Nothing, blackness.

Cold hard ground underneath him, thank you God for the stillness. Damp, stinking. Fear, a dozen heartbeats. Yelling, not in English.

Dark.

 

He wakes up and he’s in a cage. Dum Dum is there, his fucking bowler secure on his head. Bucky coughs, feels his breath, says, “The others?” Dum Dum shakes his head.

Fuck it all.

 

He wakes up and he’s in a cage. Someone is pouring water into his mouth. He drinks.

He wakes, hears “Welches ist es?”

“Ihm.”

A kick to his ribs and he curls into himself as the world goes white. Not again, not another blast, not again -

He’s hyperventilating as someone carries him away, there’s a cage of tired, pale, freezing, dirty men behind him and there’s a bloodstain on the floor that doesn’t smell right, and that was him, wasn’t it? He’s not bleeding any more though. The voices are German. They’re in a prisoner of war camp. But he only needs to feed once, he can get out. He can still get home. He can still see Steve again.

A table, it’s cold and hard and still but he’s tied down, a room with dark corners and high windows and a rabbity little man, who the others address as "Doktor Zola" and who never speaks in English, not even once. He doesn’t say what he’s doing, Bucky doesn’t know what he’s doing, except that he’s cutting little lines, digging in knives, and it’s not like Bucky can help them healing up as fast as they do. There are others around him, sometimes, their voices seem excited but he can’t understand what they’re saying. They crowd around him like trees in a forest, pale forms in lab coats. He isn’t thinking, can’t think right. He’s so hungry. His stomach is shrivelled and painful inside him, his limbs are aching and his head beats with his heart like a red drum. Breaths still hurt. He thinks it’s maybe because his body used up everything to keep him alive, and now he has nothing left to live on. He is barely surviving. All he wants to do is drink, and they’re right there, they’re bending over him and their necks are pale, but he’s tied down with locked metal cuffs and he’s so weak. They’re cutting and cutting him and he heals slower every time. Needles, are the next thing. Long thin knives they are, pushed into his veins and sucking. Hideous and painful and like him. Other things pumped into him. They’re marking everything down, and they’ve never asked him even his name, let alone army secrets, so this is science, not torture, but oh God it hurts. A while ago now, he started loosing time. There’s light from the windows, and sometimes it’s there and he blinks and it’s gone, it’s hours later. He doesn’t know what they do to him while he’s gone. He just wants it to end. He just wants it all to be over. There is no way for him to get out of this situation. All he wants is the pain to end.

Steve. He looks up and Steve is there, golden and beautiful, and Bucky knows that he is dead. He smiles up at Steve’s face. Reaches out to touch him, but the cuffs are still around his wrists. Maybe this isn’t heaven, maybe it’s hell. To be able to see Steve, but not to touch. He doesn’t care, he’ll take it. It’s better than to be without Steve altogether.

But Steve’s face is panicked and relieved, he’s covered in dirt and sweat, and he’s trying to pull Bucky up, yanking at the metal restraints before he sees the locking mechanism, and he’s huge, he’s hulking over Bucky, he must be about six foot.

“You used to be smaller,” Bucky tells him. Steve pulls him out of that room with the high windows where he thought he’d died, and down dank, dark and filthy corridors, towards the smell of other men and blood, the sound of yelling. He doesn’t think that he’s dead any more.

The next few minutes, things are still a little blurry still, but he’s upright and Steve’s here, and before long he’s staggering along next to him. His vision is clearing and, surprisingly, Steve does not appear to be a hallucination. But he’s not the same as Bucky remembers him. It’s Steve’s face and Steve’s smell, his voice and his words. But Bucky can hear his heartbeat and it’s not the same, it’s not the arrhythmic lop-sided lub-dub that Bucky could pick out of a crowd at a hundred paces with the characteristic _swish_ of blood through a faulty valve, it’s stronger and steadier. Steve’s breathing sounds different too - they’re running and they’re panting but Steve’s not wheezing, and that’s good, of course it is, but it’s also damned impossible for the Steve Bucky knows.

“What happened to you?” Bucky asks, and Steve says,   

“I joined the army,” and yeah, that’s Steve alright. God forbid he answer a straightforward question with a straightforward answer when an opportunity to get smart presented itself.

“Is it permanent?”

“So far,” which, huh. If this definitely isn’t a dream - and he thinks it’s not because he’s pretty sure you can’t dream smells, and he can smell Steve, there is no way he could be mistaken about that - then that means Steve is in fact here, and huge, and staying that way. This is important. He can’t understand it yet, his mind is exhausted and addled and all he can coherently think of is how hungry he is, but he can understand that something big has happened, something momentous has changed, and things are never going to be the same again.

He’s stumbling and Steve is striding, and watching out for both of them. They’ve left the corridors, are in a huge high-ceilinged room filled with flame. Steve’s leading them up stairs, because there's no way out below across the ground that is nothing but fire, and Bucky tries not to look down. He doesn’t want to know what his death will look like, he doesn’t want to see the hell that is his immediate future. The heat is making his vision swirl, or maybe that’s just how hungry he is. He and Steve aren't talking anymore; Steve's mouth is set a grim line, and Bucky's panting for air.

And then suddenly, “Captain America,” an unfamiliar and dangerously accented voice yells, “How exciting! I’m a great fan of your films.” Bucky knows Captain America is a character in propaganda comic books that do great back home and are used as toilet paper on the front lines, but Steve’s carrying a funny looking shield and his new form certainly matches the guy in the drawings, so the voice must be addressing him. The sources is a man in a long leather coat speaking German accented English, and he’s blocking their only way across from one side of the huge room to the other. And Zola is at his right shoulder. Bucky wants to tear across the walkway so fast he blurs and rip Zola’s throat out, but even the rush of rage and hatred at the sight of him makes him feel sick, weak, he hasn’t eaten for days and there is no way that he can move that fast. He’s having trouble standing upright.

The Black Leather Man is saying, “So, Doctor Erskine managed it after all,” and Steve is walking up to him in the way that means someone’s about to get punched, but Bucky can barely move, he cannot protect Steve, and the swagger is jarringly intimidating on Steve’s huge new un-Steve-like form, and the man’s saying, “Not exactly an improvement, but still, impressive,” and, sure enough, Steve hits him with his shield, hard enough to clang, and his eyes are already going red with blood. Yeah, the new Steve’s intimidating.

And from the low-growled, “You got no idea,” he knows it.

But the man says, “Haven’t I?” and his punch dents Steve’s shield, Steve goes for his gun but he looses it, and the man’s next punch sends him to the ground. Bucky hates how close Steve is to falling into the flames, he wants to move but when he lets go of the railing he sways, his head is swimming and his vision’s blurring, he can barely think. Every breath is tainted, smells of smoke, Zola and wrong, and he feels like he’s choking. The next thing he can focus on, Steve’s desperate kick takes the man down, and while they’re both out Zola, the little toad, pulls a lever and the walkway separates at the middle, and Steve’s pulled back to safety, to Bucky, away from Black Leather Man, but they’re trapped.

Black Leather Man, who’s saying, “No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see I was his greatest success.” And he’s picking, peeling away at his neck. There’s a flash of red and Bucky can’t stop the reflexive swallow, but it’s not blood, it’s a mask. His whole face is a mask and he peels it away, and underneath he’s...he looks emancipated, almost skeletal, sharp and harsh, his nose looks like it’s been sucked inwards and his skin is a horrible, burned, cooked-lobster red. He looks like he’s dying, starving, burning. He looks like he’s already dead. He looks like the devil Bucky knows is hiding under his own skin.

Bucky’s not stupid, he can put two and two together, even through the hungry terrified fog his mind’s become. Some creepy fucker like Zola has experimented on Steve, and the last guy he touched is skull-faced and insane.

But Steve smells right, Steve joked with him, he was leading Bucky to safety and he’s Steve, Bucky knows he’s Steve, he’d know if he wasn’t and this isn’t a hallucination but he blurts out “You don’t have one of those, do you?” anyway, and it’s supposed to be a joke but he can hear the fear in his own voice.

The Black Leather man ignores him. “You are deluded Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier but in reality you’re just afraid to admit we’ve left humanity behind. Unlike you, I embrace it proudly, without fear.”

Steve says, “Then how come you’re running?” like the punk he is, always got to have the last word, but the two men are gone away in a lift sharp, presumably to an escapee route, and it’s just Bucky and Steve left here, in a Godforsaken factory in the process of burning to the ground. Neither of them know this building, and they don’t have time to search for a way out. Bucky doesn’t expect that Steve has a plan for getting out of here. Steve never has a plan. But Steve says, "Come on, let's go, up," and Bucky follows because the ground floor is on fire and because it is Steve, and although he never has a plan he has always been the best, out of the two of them, at improvising.

At the top of the next flight of stairs is a metal girder between the two gangways to the side closest to the compound entrance, and Steve must be able to tell now how weak he is, because he helps Bucky over the railing, saying, "One at a time," in the same coaxing tone he uses when Bucky's drunk. He makes it, over, and then he's balancing on the girder, and he can feel the vibrations from the exploding factory through the metal. They echo through him and his hands are shaking, but his overall balance is still as unnaturally sure as it always has been. He shuts out the fear, shuts out the smell and the heat and the knowledge of the great deep drop and just concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other. He makes it half way across before the beam starts to slip from it's moorings. The heat and the explosions rocking the foundations of the factory are too much for the structure to hold. The metal screeches and the whole beam judders. Bucky feels a horrifying soaring swoop in his stomach, the girder's already falling before he's running. He has to leap for the railing, drag himself up and over, and he could almost cry from relief. Except then he realises that again, Steve is trapped on one side of the factory while he's now stranded on the other. He's cursing himself, because he should have made Steve go over first, but it's too late for that now, it's not productive.

He searches with his eyes for a solution instead, yells for Steve to do the same, "There's got to be a rope or something!"

But Steve calls, "Just go, get out of here!"

The reply is visceral, "No, not without you!"

He can see Steve cast around for something, anything, and he is too but there's nothing there, nothing to help them, nothing to save Steve and they're going to die here, he's going to die here, and worse Steve is too, and they can't even touch each other-

But Steve's pushing the metal railing back on his gangway with strength he shouldn't have, and then he's backing up. Bucky doesn't understand why he's backing away, then realises Steve's idea a second before Steve jumps.

Bucky's screaming, because he knows the one he loves most is about to die, about to fall to his death in fire and there is nothing Bucky can do to save him.

And then Steve is flying out of a mushroom cloud of fire and slamming hard into the railing in front of Bucky. Somehow, miraculously, he made the jump. Bucky grabs Steve and yanks him up with all his might. They both go crashing down on the other side, Steve's welcome weight falling on top of him. The metal floor is warm against his back and an explosion rattles through his bones but Bucky laughs, because Steve's amazing and a genius and an idiot and alive. Steve grins down at him, and then stands, pulling Bucky to his feet.

"Come on," he says, "We're not out yet."

Bucky takes a second, just one second, to hold Steve close, and Steve nuzzles his face against Bucky's neck, and Bucky tells himself that it doesn't matter that Steve has to lean down to do that now. Then they part, and Steve guides them through a doorway to another set of stairs, but these are held within their own stairwell and they've held up better to the onslaught of explosions than anything on the factory floor. They go down a couple of floors because they can't go any higher, and then Steve takes them out of the stairwell and into a corridor leading away from where they came. Bucky thinks he can hear gunshots over the booming explosions now. Suddenly he trips in the dimly lit corridor, nearly falling flat on his face, and the lump that tripped him up is a dead man in Hydra uniform. He takes the guy’s gun, a rifle, checks the ammo and snaps the barrel back into place, and Steve’s hesitated so that he can catch up. He does, and walk, and they don’t speak. Yeah, something huge has changed.

They follow it across the length of a building, the prison block, probably, although Bucky hasn't been here. Once they're far enough away from the burning machinery, Bucky sees another stairwell and they take it down. At ground level Steve kicks through a locked door, and they're outside.

The air out here smells of pine, blood and burning. It's still night but the floodlights and the orange glow are light enough for Bucky to see by. They've come out by the side of the building, and around the corner, shines the flash of a white-blue blast, to the left, only they’re hidden from the source by some crates or something, and he can’t help but flinch back, sink into the shadows of the doorway once again. Steve notices, stops immediately.

“Bucky?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you-” 

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Let’s just get out of here.”

There’s another white-blue blast up ahead, but this time he doesn’t flinch, and Steve nods grimly, his forehead pinched with worry. “Not much further Buck, don’t worry. The other guys here, I let them out. I think they’ve got some of the weapons, and Hydra wasn’t expecting an escape attempt, we should be able to get out-”

“Yeah, ‘course we will.”

Steve's gaze hardens in the way it does when he's about to do something stupid, and Bucky knows exactly what he's thinking, knows Steve's plan is to shield him from the fighting while he is so obviously weak. But Steve's shit at plans, and his shield is made of wood. And Bucky has already almost lost him once today. Bucky leans for a second longer pretending to catch his breath, then runs past Steve, with a burst of speed he knows he doesn’t have left, before he has a chance to protest, around the crates, so that his head and one shoulder are the potential line of fire with his gun ready to shoot. But there’s no one in a Hydra uniform still standing. The ones that are are ragged, dirty and thin, and cheering. There are tanks, but the tops are open and there’s guys in rags climbing half-way out of them, and there are piles of dust on the ground. Like Michael.

“Do not,” says Steve, in the bossiest voice he has, “ _ever_ do that again,” coming up behind Bucky on his right and his stomach swoops and his hearing dulls, his vision goes white around the edges and he really didn’t have any speed left at all, did he?

“Hey, it’s ok buddy, I got ya,” Steve’s darting in to hold him up, “are you alright?” his throat is right there, his blood beating so close to the surface, just a whisper of skin away, “What do you need?” Bucky could just reach out and bite down, God, he’d feel so much better, he’d be full, he’d be warm, he’d be strong again, safe, “I’m sure we can find you some food-”

“No. I’m fine.” Never. He can never hurt Steve.

He rights himself, stands on his own again, forces himself not to sway on his feet. There are men coming towards them, not enemies. They swarm around Steve, saying, “Thank you,” in three different languages Bucky knows. He hates them being so close to Steve, but he knows that, even as bone-weary as he is, they’re just as exhausted, whereas Steve is healthier than Bucky’s ever known him to be, and if there’s a fight, he will win. Then there’s a familiar smell, and Dum Dum is there and he’s still got his goddamn stupid hat on, and a grin.

“Hey Serge, you alright?”

Bucky tries to grin back, says, “Yeah, I’m fine.” How many times does he have to say that until people stop asking? It's getting harder to lie, the more exhausted he gets.

“Thank God. I thought for sure...but then this idiot turns up - are you Captain America for real?”

Steve’s been paying attention since Dum Dum spoke to Bucky, and now he says, “Yep, that’s me.”

“What? The publicity stunt?” Bucky asks.

“Well, yeah.”

By now there’s quite a crowd around them, and Steve raises his voice, yells, “Alright men, listen up!” and the babble dies down a little, which is frankly astounding in a recently secured battle field. “There’s an allied camp about thirty miles south of our location, that's where I came from, that’s were we’re headed. It should take about a day to get there if we can keep up the pace, and they’ll be food when we get there. It’ll be dawn in an hour, so we start walking now, we’ll get there at sunset. Anyone who’s been wounded, we carry. And take as many Hydra weapons as you can too, our people can use them.” 

These men have been starving and freezing for days, some of them weeks. Most, like Bucky, are exhausted. However, they've been running on empty long enough now that the promise of rest, warmth, food, even a modicum of safety is enough to galvanise them into action. That is enough for them to march all day on an empty stomach for. They arrange themselves into a rough column, and although there is probably about one wounded for every five able-bodied, most can at least limp. Those who can't are hefted up onto the tanks that idiots like Dum Dum, Gabe and Dernier are reckless enough to try driving. They orientate with the help of the sun warming the sky to the East and start marching south about forty minutes after they break out.

Bucky just hopes that he can hold up as well as the rest of them are doing. He's walking at Steve's left side at the front of the column. Bucky leans on Steve for the first mile, but after that he feels a little stronger, so he pushes off Steve and he hitches up the rifle in his arms.

Steve lets him, but asks gently, "You gonna make it?"

And Bucky replies, as if scandalised by the question, "Of course," and privately thinks that if he'd ever asked Steve the same in such a tone full of tenderness Steve would have bitten his head off. He can't say he minds it himself. Not at all. He knows objectively it hasn't been very long, but he feels like he's been at war forever.

In the dark, they walk silently, watchful, but as the sun starts to rise in the sky and the forest around them is revealed to be empty of enemies, and actually quite beautiful in the morning glow, the sound of chatter starts up. They are heavily armed, after all; everyone who isn't carrying someone wounded is carrying a gun. Steve and Bucky don't talk though. Bucky thinks Steve's letting him walk unmolested to conserve his energy, and he doesn't mind. The freedom to remain silent is welcome, after all those days he'd been forced to scream. However long that was.

When the sun's high enough in the sky for it to be almost noon they come across a stream. After a few of the thirstier men try it for taste and proclaim it fine, the column breaks down and the men gather along the length of the stream. Some go as far as taking off their clothes and starting to bathe, but it really is too cold for that, so most stop. By the time the men at the back get to the stream, most of those that were at the front have sat down. Without anyone ever deciding anything, they are apparently taking a break.

Some guy comes up to talk to Steve, saying, "Where exactly 'south' is this camp then? You got a map?" and Steve goes off to talk to him, leaving Bucky alone. He keeps Steve within his sights as he finds a tree to lean on. Steve stays within hearing distance however, so Bucky allows himself a moments repose, crouches down and rests his folded arms on his knees, his head on his arms. He stares at the dark little world created in the gaps between his limbs, at the moss on the floor of the forest, at the mud caked on his boots, and does not think of blood. The blood on shirts, oozing out of cuts, pumping through arteries, the blood of the men bustling around him, talking, laughing, wounds with water from the stream. It’d be sweet with relief and joy he knows, even if it was a little thinner than it should be. He’d only need a stomachful. If he picked one of the healthier guys, they’d probably be fine. One of them who’d only been forced to work, instead of pinned down to a table like an insect, cut into. One of the lucky ones, they’d be fine, and he could be strong again, he could use his speed to make sure Steve stayed safe-

“Hey, Bucky.” It’s Steve.

He looks up, tries to find a smile, but can’t, so doesn’t plaster on a fake one. Steve would see through it.

“You haven’t drunk anything, have you? Selfless idiot - there’s enough to go around, if we’re careful. Here, have some.” Steve holds out a canteen, and it sloshes with empty, flavourless water. It’ll do nothing for him, he knows that. It’s not what he needs.

“Thanks Stevie.”

He takes the canteen, does not grab Steve’s wrist with it’s purple-blue-green veins and an artery under the base of the thumb. He drinks the water, and it tastes of nothing. It’s hardly similar, really, to what he needs, but he’s so starved now that it’s enough to make his mouth water and his teeth sharpen and throb.

“You gonna be alright Buck?” Steve’s watching him worriedly. “I can help you, if you need. You don’t gotta be proud, you were a prisoner of war. I can-”

“I can walk, Steve. I’m just tired. I need to sleep, and then I’ll be right as rain.”

“Yeah, well, ok then. But if you start seeing stars again, you tell me, y’hear?”

“Loud and clear, Captain America,” he smirks, and the smile is real.

“Oh come on, don’t laugh. It was awful. The whole thing was a complete farce, I was a damn showgirl.”

“What, with tights and a short skirt and everything?”

“Buck-”

“Hey, I’m not mocking. You’d look swell like that, honest. Some thin tights and a short, short skirt, it’d be great-”

“You talk so much shit Bucky.” But he’s smiling, and there’s a blush on his cheeks. It turns up when he’s embarrassed, and it turns up other times too. Bucky likes how a blush looks on him. The red, it makes his eyes so blue. The red, the hot, so close to his skin-

No.

“We’d better get moving again soon, yeah? I’d say it’s about noon now,” Bucky says.

Steve glances up in the sky, checks the sun’s position. “That’s about right, yeah. I’ll go and check that the ones who can’t walk have had water, and then we’ll get started again.”

“Ok. See you in a bit.”

“I’ll catch you up.” Of course, Steve will stay a while with the ones at the back, who’re walking slow because they shouldn’t really be walking. He’ll be making sure that each of them has got someone to hold them up before he makes his way the front, nominatively to lead, but actually to watch in case Bucky needs holding up. Of course he will.

Bucky stays down until the last possible moment, when all the other men have got up again, does not let himself move towards any of them. Does not let any of them touch him. Most of them know where he’s been, and they let him keep his distance. It’s lucky for them they do. They are being kind, and their kindness saves them.

They trek all day, and it’s hard to walk but it’s bearable because he’s upwind of the wounded and bleeding at the back. He ignores both his pain and hunger by badgering Steve with questions, learns everything he’s been doing in Bucky’s absence and all of the knowledge he has about the serum he was injected with. Bucky can’t help but mourn, in a quiet corner in the back of his mind, for the tiny kid he’s loved to fuck all of these years. But, really, this is just the belated appearance of all that should have changed for Steve during puberty, if he’d had enough food and medicine every winter he got sick. He’s stronger now, physically powerful enough to finally have a bite big enough for his bark. He’s safer now from fights and disease, if not war, and he’s happy about the change, so Bucky is too. He’s angry that Steve found a way to get involved in the war that Bucky would have done anything to save him from, but Steve is like a bulldog when he gets an idea stuck in his head, and he was never going to let his patriotism go. Despite all of the awful things that could have happened to him, in Brooklyn or in the war, he is still alive, healthier than ever and safe, and he is with Bucky again. This is what he thinks of, instead of the hunger pains and increasing desperation.

When they get back to the camp, there is a crowd and a woman, and Steve knows the woman. Bucky watches Steve look at her, and there is fear, respect and fierce affection, but there is not lust. He is unsettled nonetheless, but tries to ignore the feeling. Steve has always liked girls, if perhaps not as much or in the same way as other guys, and if Steve wants to have her, as well as or instead of Bucky, he will do nothing to stop it. He doesn't think Steve will though.

Bucky rouses the crowd to cheer for Steve mostly because he wants Steve to know that he deserves it, and only partly to break the tension between Steve and the woman with lipstick-red lips. Then the army bases personnel come forward, and immediately start organising. He’s not the worst wounded, not anymore, by a long shot, so when the nurses and the medics rush forward, they take the ones on make-shift stretchers, or with blood soaking their clothes first. Bucky’s shirt was put on him when he was on the table, and there’s no blood on it, or singe marks. He looks gaunt, filthy and starved, but so does everybody. He gets left alone. Bucky and Steve are manhandled with the rest into the wash tents which have cold water showers, and he ignores the presence of inviting warm bodies all around him as he has done all day even as blackness passes in front of his vision again. He blinks through it and concentrates on ensuring that he never looses sight of Steve for a minute. They are bundled out when the next lot of guys get impatient for their turn, and they’re given a change of clothes because Bucky’s wearing piss-stained stinking rags and Steve’s wearing a USO costume.

The medical staff may have other priorities, but Stevie will not leave him alone. He stays by Bucky’s side, he positions himself subtly so that no one else can get close to him, he’s a warm and solid presence that keeps Bucky grounded. But Bucky needs to drink, now. He doesn’t think it’s exaggerating to guess that he will die if he does not. The next man to come close to him when there’s no one else around may be killed, if it’s not Steve. He might not be able to stop, he’s so hungry. His hunger scares him. He’s never felt this starving, this out of control. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s not even sure if he can stop himself hurting Steve. He needs to get away from everyone, find an enemy soldier, although they’re in allied territory, or perhaps a hopeless man on the brink of death, but he can’t, because Steve _will not go away_.

He finally slips out of sight of Steve while he’s called up to the ranking officer’s tent, probably for discipline. Bucky’s not worried. If they get booted out of the army, they get to go home. If Steve gets imprisoned, Bucky will break him out. Just as soon as he can drink. It’s hard, because he can’t move fast anymore, can barely move as fast as a normal human, but he scouts around the camp, tries to find someone alone. But everyone he comes across is wounded or busy helping wounded people. The normal camp personnel are all gathered in the mess or the barracks or the hospital tents, trying desperately to provide enough beds, food and medicine to supply about a hundred and seventy starving ex-prisoners. No one has so much as wandered off alone for a cigarette. No dying man has been left alone. Bucky’s not strong enough to catch someone, and sure as hell not without a struggle, and he can’t get noticed, not here, not now. If his secret is discovered by soldiers, like this, in a war, he will be shot through the head. There are no enemy soldiers any nearer than the Hydra camp they’ve just spent a day’s hike escaping.

It’s ridiculous, that he’s made it this far, that he’s among allies, but he is still going to die. They’re supposed to be safe now. Him and Steve are back together, finally. He’d thought, on that table - Bucky can’t leave him now, not when he’s finally got him back. The soldiers here, some of them are healthy. They could stand to loose a little blood. He’s a recently liberated prisoner of war, after all. All of the rest of them, they’re getting shown to the mess, they’re guzzling down the food, couldn’t he be allowed to just have a _taste_ -

There is no way he can feed, and then Steve is back from Colonel Phillips. He’s asking, “Have you eaten?”and Bucky’s lying, “Yes,” so Steve leads him to a tent that is his now, because apparently staging an unsanctioned rescue mission into enemy territory with only basic military training qualifies you for actual Captain-hood in this man’s army. The whitish canvas hides them from view, and when they’re inside, they’re a little ways away from where most of the others are, the mess and the sleeping quarters and the ordinary barracks, so that no one can hear them if they talk quietly.

Steve moves in close, so close that Bucky’s drowning in his smell, and says, “I was so scared you were dead.”

“Yeah, me too, for a while there,” Bucky says, trying not to breathe.

Steve moves in to kiss him but it is too close, the smell of him is overwhelming, and Bucky blanches. Steve is hurt, Bucky knows, but there’s no sign of it in his face or voice when he says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.” It’s probably the fact that he’s hiding his pain so well that makes Bucky’s heart ache for him.

“It’s not your fault. I’m just - just tired. I just need to sleep.”

“You can sleep here. I’ve told them you’re my friend, that we’ve known each other forever, and there aren’t enough tents to go around anyway so they said we could share. There’s another cot, if you want...”

Steve doesn’t want, Bucky knows that.

“It’s fine. Honestly. I do want to be close to you.” God, he wants it.

But he can’t, he should refuse, if he gets too close there’s no way he can resist-

But he has to, because there is no other option, there is no alternative, he must bear this. He has to wait until an opportunity presents itself. There is no other way.

But he does not think that he can make it though the night, unless he feeds, it has been _so long-_

“Bucky?”

He’s barely moving, his eyes are staring at a fixed point, and as he blinks, he realises it’s Steve’s neck.

“Nothing. It’s nothing. I’m fine.” He’s cursing himself for his pathetic lying, but mostly he’s thinking, _need_.

They’re alone. Steve is strong. He’s healthy. He can take it.

_No._

“Bucky please, talk to me. How can I help? What can I do?”

“ _Nothing_.”

The inside of the tent sways alarmingly.

“Bucky! Hey, what’s going on? You didn’t eat at all, did you? What the hell are you playing at- Did they drug you? Are you - Oh God, are you-”

“I’m fine.” The lie is so obvious now, when he’s crumpled to his knees on the floor, and Steve’s the one holding his torso upright.

And then, suddenly, Bucky’s swooping upwards. He’s in Steve’s arms, he’s being carried, “Just hold on Buck, we’ll get help-”

“No!” If Steve takes him to the medical tent, they’ll notice whatever Zola did. They’ll have needles, and knives, they’ll have handcuffs, they’ll -

“Ok, ok, Bucky, breathe! I won’t, I won’t take you anywhere.” Steve sinks to the ground, with Bucky still in his arms, until they rest on the ground. “See? We’re not going anywhere.”

Bucky’s breathing normally again now, but all he can smell is Steve.

He can’t.

He _needs_.

“Please...” he says, and it sounds like a dying breath.

“What is it? Bucky, please tell me what you need! Let me get you - food, water, what...?” Steve sounds desperate, pleading, though Bucky can’t see him because lifting his face would put his nose too close to Steve’s neck. But Steve wants to help. Surely he’ll let Bucky take...He doesn’t even have to know...

No. That would be wrong. To do to Steve what he’s done to the others, it’d be wrong. And what if he can’t stop?

The need is throbbing inside him in time with Steve’s heartbeat.

Steve is saying, “-doctor might help you, I’ll be there the whole time, I won’t leave for a second-” when Bucky interrupts, “I need to...I need to drink.”

Steve moves to get up, “I can get-”

“No. Stay. I need.” A deep breath, and he can _taste_ Steve’s blood. “I need to drink your blood.” His voice comes out cracked and broken, and the silence is still and terrible for a second before Steve coughs, “What?”

“There’s no time. I just. I’m different. I’m wrong. I don’t know what I am. But I can’t live if I don’t have blood. I need it. I need.”

He can’t meet Steve’s eyes. He’s staring at his neck. He needs, it pulses in him in time with Steve’s new strong heart beat. Lub-dub, he needs.

Lub-dub, need.

Need.

Need.

Need.

“Can you- You’ll feel better?”

“Yes,” a gasp.

“Then, yes. If it’ll-” Bucky lunges forwards, and his throbbing teeth sink through Steve’s neck like it’s butter, and he can taste Steve.

When he was fourteen, the first time he drank blood. The first time he had sex. When they were sixteen, the first time he kissed Steve. The first time he sucked Steve off. Seventeen, the first time they fuck. Nineteen, his one stolen taste of Steve’s blood. The first time he drained a man completely. None of it, not any of it, was as good as this.

Steve’s blood pumps into his mouth, and it sinks into bloodstream, into his flesh, like liquid light. His body lights up like he’s on fire. Every single fucking nerve is screaming pleasure. His head is a mess of need, satisfaction and a higher high than he’s ever reached before. He feels like he’s a single point of awareness in an entire universe of ecstasy. He feels surrounded by, cushioned in, buoyed up with bliss. It feels like coming home, and coming, at the same time. His dick is hard, but it feels like it’s a long way away, it’s only a fraction of the sensation he’s experiencing. This is so much more than just arousal. This is everything.

Steve groans, his voice thrumming through him, Bucky feels it through his teeth and it trembles through his world. He pulls himself away, and it is the hardest thing he has ever done, but he can’t hurt Steve, and this, this is wrong. He licks, once, pulls back and away, crawls blindly backwards until his back hits a cot. His senses are sped up as if he’d drunk every last trickle of a strong man’s blood, and he has to focus hard on Steve’s heart beat, has to reassure himself that he hasn’t made a mistake, that he pulled back in time, that Steve is safe.

“Bucky,” Steve says, and he sounds drugged, like he does when they’ve been fucking for hours, on Sunday after church. Bucky has a momentary flash of habitual pride because _I did that_ , before he realises that all he’s done is doped Steve with the poison of his body. All he’s done is tainted Steve with his darkness.

But Steve shifts and his dick is hard between his legs. He liked it. And he’s not asleep, either, like all of the others were, so whatever they’ve done to him must protect him from Bucky’s venom, somehow.

“Bucky,” he says again, and Bucky can’t meet his eyes so he stares at the ground. He can see Steve’s limbs moving towards him, as Steve settles beside him against the cot, and does not flinch back because he physically can’t make himself do it. It’s too late now anyway. Steve knows. Bucky can’t protect him from his filth any longer. Steve’s hand cups his cheek, and he can’t help but tilt his head into it, because even though he’s pulled away, his heart’s still beating in time with Steve’s. The hunger’s gone, he is as strong as he’s ever been, but he still... _needs_. He doesn’t know what. He’s never felt like this before. He’s never felt so much.

Steve’s fingers are brushing gently over his cheekbone, and they still feel the same, they’re still artists’ hands, the calluses are still the same. Steve’s thumb strokes Bucky’s mouth, his lips, and he stifles the whine in his throat, but he can’t stop his eyes from fluttering closed, because his teeth are so sensitive and Steve’s skin is so close, Bucky can smell him. Steve’s thumb parts his lips and he’s powerless to resist, lets his jaw fall open. Steve strokes across Bucky’s teeth, and somehow it must be obvious that they’re changed now, Bucky doesn’t know, he’s never seen his face in a mirror like this, and he hears Steve’s sharp intake of breath. Bucky glances at Steve’s face, and he looks...wondering? Not afraid. Not disgusted. Just amazed. And then a rage ripples through his features, his cupped palm turns into a fist and Bucky jolts with fear before he says, “Did Zola do this to you?”

“No! No, Steve, don’t worry, it’s not...” He trails off. It’s not unnatural? It’s not evil? Of course it is.

“Then how did this happen? How did you...get like this?”

“I don’t know. I don’t.” He turns his head away from Steve’s face, so close, turns his cheek into Steve’s fist, and it opens and cups his face again. He wants it, he wants all of it, all of the affection he can get, just in case Steve takes it away again. He could. If he does, Bucky has nothing.

Bucky takes a deep breath. “I’ve always been like this. Since- I think I was born like it. Sister Maria told me that my mother said my father was the devil. I don’t know what that makes me.”

“What? Our whole lives? When we were kids you were-?” and he stops himself.

_Inhuman, a parasite, a demon._ “Yeah.”

“But how did you-” _feed_. “I would have noticed. How did you hide it for so long?”

“I fed off bullies, after fights. Girls, after dates.”

“No one ever knew?”

“They forget. Usually, they pass out, forget what happened. I just say, you fainted for a moment.”

Steve’s hand is on his neck now, his other hand is on his thigh. His tone is quiet, calm and neutral when he says, “You ever do that to me before, Buck?”

Bucky chokes on, “No!” it comes out so fast.

“Why not?”

His thoughts freeze, “What?”

Steve licks his lips, glances down. “It felt good.”

“You- It- You liked that?” Steve’s lips twitch in a smile for a second, then he says, “Wait, you’re serious?”

“Yeah?”

“Bucky that felt - it was - It felt good. It felt like being...overwhelmed. Everything just went out of focus and there wasn’t anything left except...feeling good. It was like a rush of hot and white, and then like floating. It felt, well." Steve's blushing now. "It felt like sex. I really wouldn't mind doing it again.”

Bucky blinks, reorientates his world view. “Oh.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Well, it doesn’t feel like that when I just bite my tongue.” Steve snorts. “I didn’t know it could feel all that good. I thought it was just, nothing. Like they just passed out.”

“Right. Well. It’s nice.”

“Ok.”

“Are you- I feel stupid just saying it, but are you a vampire?”

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Are there other-”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met anyone like me. Or - not human. The only thing I know is that whatever my father was is the reason my mother couldn’t bear to raise me herself. And none of that shit about garlic or the day time seems to apply, obviously.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“So. Let me get this straight. For our entire lives, you’ve been feeding on blood to survive, and you’ve been...drinking from the girls you dated, and you never bit me, and you’ve kept all of this a secret from me because...?”

Bucky can’t keep up with this turn of events fast enough to reply intelligently. “I, uh, I thought it’d be...You wouldn’t like it?”

Steve’s eyes go unbearably soft at that, though there is no pity. “You thought I’d leave you?”

Bucky says nothing. Yes he’d thought that. And he wouldn’t have blamed Steve.

“I’m not gonna leave you Bucky. Not over anything. I swear. I’m with you until the end of the line, remember?”

Bucky can feel tears in his eyes as he huffs a laugh. “You sure about that? No take-backs.”

Steve smiles, a small, sad smile, and leans forward to press his forehead against Bucky’s. “’m sure.”

“‘k.”

They rest like that for a long moment. Bucky breathes in Steve’s breath, smells nothing but Steve, focuses on his touch, and this is how it is supposed to be. This is his place. He has never doubted it, and he has still never been surer of it than he is at this moment. Steve knows everything he is, he knows all of the worst things that Bucky’s done, but he is still here. Steve will always be here.

And then suddenly he can’t keep his hands off Steve. His lips slip to Steve’s, his hands find Steve’s the bottom of Steve’s shirt and move up under it. They’re in an awkward position, sitting side by side and twisted to face each other, so Bucky moves on top of Steve, grinds their groins together, relishes the way he doesn’t have to be careful not to crush this hulking new Steve, and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him. Steve responds immediately, and Bucky, thinking nothing but,  _perfect perfect always so good so right here mine,_  whines into his mouth. He moves down, off Steve’s mouth and down across his jaw, onto his neck and presses his open mouth against the pulse-point, feels the beat of blood right beneath his tongue, and Steve said it was ok. He feels loose, open, needy. He wants, and Steve is here, and he can have. He has never been able to have blood and have Steve at the same time before, it’s always been one or the other, never both and it’s, _God_ , it’s-

“Hey, hey, Bucky, it’s alright.” Steve’s hands are steady at his sides. Bucky realises that his kisses taste of tears.

“Sorry,” he gasps, swallows. “I’m sorry. I just thought, if you ever found out, you’d- you wouldn’t want me anymore. I was scared. But you do, you’re still here. And you’re strong now, I won’t be able to hurt you. You saved me - I thought - fuck.”

Steve’s hands moving soothingly up and down his ribcage as he shivers and breathes before he can say, “Love you.”

Steve says, “I love you too Buck,” while Bucky skims his humming teeth across Steve’s neck and feels the thrum of his voice and nearly groans with it. And Steve’s always liked when Bucky lets go, and now his hands are stroking more down than up, his waist and his hips, pushing and controlling just a little, Bucky’s groin down into Steve’s.

He has to check, “You’re sure you’re ok. You’re not lightheaded or hazy, or-”

“I’m good, Buck, I swear. I feel good. I want you.”

There’s a hungry, dark voice inside Bucky now, and it’s telling him, you only took a few mouthfuls. You didn’t even take as much as you used to in Brooklyn. Sure, Bucky’s not hungry anymore, but he’s not full. Somehow even a little of Steve’s blood is enough to make him feel stronger now, but it hasn’t sated him. Yet. And Steve is so strong now, the venom or whatever it is in his spit barely even affected him, and he enjoyed it. So there is no reason, no reason whatsoever, not to drink from him again. And Steve’s pressing up against him, cock hard and lips soft, his skin smooth and eyes bright and Steve, and he’s so eager. Bucky could take, his lips over Steve’s neck, his cock throbbing, his teeth buzzing and his cheeks flushed and his heart one-two-three time with Steve’s, he could just take a little more -

“Please,” he says, and it is partly begging and partly prayer for forgiveness, because he’s sure this is wrong but he can’t resist any more, “Please, Stevie.” He doesn’t even know what he’s begging for.

“You want more?”

_Yes_. “Please,” he says.

“Ok. I...” Steve pulls back a little, so he can look Bucky in the eye, and Bucky has no idea what he sees there, but his hands grip tighter to Bucky’s hips. Steve says, calmly, although he’s still a little out of breath, “You could kill me, if you went too far, couldn’t you?”

“No-” he’s shaking his head and shaking all over-

“I know, I know you wouldn’t. Just tell me. You could, couldn’t you.”

“I...have.” He never wanted Stevie to know this, he never wanted him to see this part of him, he never wanted to stain Steve with the filth he lives in. Steve hasn’t left him yet, and it’s a miracle. He would leave himself if he could. He wishes he could be normal, human, for Steve. But he’s not and has never been.

“That’s ok.” Steve’s hands on his face, brushing into his hair, and he still can’t look away, still doesn’t know what Steve can see in his eyes. “Everyone’s killed someone in war.”

It’s horribly jarring, to hear words like that coming out of Steve, Steve who is good, Steve who is uncompromisingly moral, but this is not Brooklyn. This is not their apartment. This is not home. “Yes,” Bucky says.

“Listen carefully, Bucky, ‘cause I need you to know this: I trust you. I’d trust you with a loaded gun pointed at my head with the safety off, and I trust you with this. I know you won’t hurt me. Ok?”

It’s like they’re eighteen and innocent all over again. It’s- Steve’s placing his life in Bucky’s hands. He knows everything and he still-

“I love you. I won’t hurt you,” Bucky swears.

“I know.”

Bucky pulls back and off Steve fast and jerky, forces himself onto his feet and pulls Steve up with him. He’s stronger than he has been for a while now, and before he would have been scared of hurting Steve, would have hidden care behind ever movement so Steve wouldn’t see it and start bitching, but now he can just let go, so manhandles Steve roughly onto the cot, pushes him down onto it. He pulls off his own shirt, undoes Steve’s with hands that blur, because old habits die hard and he’s not ripping the buttons off a perfectly good shirt. Steve barely has time to blink by the time he’s done, says, “You could do this all this time and you hid it from me?”

“No. It never used to be like this. Only recently, when I...when I drank a man until he died. And now, apparently, from whatever’s in your blood.”

“It’s incredible-” Steve’s interrupted by Bucky undoing his pants, pulling until they come down far enough Steve’s legs that he can kick them off. Then he takes off his own, his underpants with them, until they’re both naked, and he climbs on top of the covers, next to Steve. He pushes Steve to the side so that he can lie flat, and then pulls Steve on top of him.

“So you can pull away. Just in case,” he says, and brings Steve’s hand up to his mouth, starts licking long stripes across his palm to distract him so he doesn’t object. He wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t trust himself, but this is Steve. He has to be sure, he has to take every precaution.

Steve presses his fingers gently against Bucky’s open mouth until he takes them in. He laves his tongue around each finger individually, keeps eye contact with Steve.

“Fuck,” Steve says, “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

He turns his fingers slowly, so gently, presses them against Bucky’s sensitive, hot-cold buzzing teeth, and Bucky moans in his throat, lets his eyes roll back in his head.

“That’s good? You like that?”

Steve doesn’t really want an answer, and anyway his mouth’s full, but Bucky moans again, low in his throat, in affirmative.

“They’re different now. Your teeth. They’re...longer. Or maybe it’s just because I can see them...they’re so sharp. I’d never really noticed. You like me touching them, huh?”

Bucky moans again but Steve’s still talking.

“Does it feel like that when we’re kissing? Does it feel good when my tongue’s stroking over them?”

Bucky pulls Steve’s fingers out of his mouth before he bites, guides them down to Steve’s cock, gasps, “In me, now.”

He feels Steve’s cock through his fingers, and he wasn’t small before but now he’s proportional to his towering new frame, and he opens his mouth to speak before Steve says, “Not a damn word.”

So Bucky swallows down, _why Captain, someone must be happy to see me_ , and instead smiles the way he feels, like the cat that got the cream, and then gives his own fingers a far less thorough and more hurried coating before pushing inside himself, rubbing, pressing, pushing where he needs it. Steve strokes his hand slick with spit over his dick, while Bucky scissors his fingers, pushes another in, and there’s burning and stretch and it hurts but it doesn’t matter because he heals in seconds and he needs Steve in him now. Steve’s nipping kisses over his jaw, neck, chest, licking over his nipple and it nearly makes him shout out. He stifles it though; they’ve both had a lot of practice at that.

When he feels like he’s about to burst he chokes, “Steve,” and he pulls his fingers out of himself, and Steve lines himself up to Bucky’s entrance. He waits, the fucker, until Bucky’s made eye contact with him, and then he pushes in slow and sweet and painful and perfect. It’s still good but Bucky can feel every fraction of an inch of Steve’s new girth and length, and he’s kinda glad Steve’s going in slower than normal. Bucky used to hold himself over Steve this way, ride his cock, but now, it’s Steve above him, pressing into him, hot and huge above him. It’s new but it’s not bad because it’s Steve. He’s trapped but he’s not afraid. He never could be.

Steve’s bottomed out now, but he’s not moving gently like Bucky would, he’s holding back in a way that Bucky’s never dared to, because of the way Steve would feel if he thought that Bucky couldn’t take it. Bucky realises, now, just exactly how frustrating it is.

Steve asks, softly, “This ok?” and Bucky grunts, “‘Course it fucking is, you’re barely moving. Come _on_.”

So Steve does, and it’s- fuck, Bucky’s missed this so much. He’s missed Steve so much, he’s felt his absence every other waking moment. The sex, he’s missed too, although it hasn’t really been that much of a priority. Of course, now he’s drowning in the ecstasy of Steve’s touch again he doesn’t know how he’s ever gone a day without it. The pressure and the friction deep inside, it sings into pleasure at the same time as flashing into pain. It’s beyond intimate to be so close to Steve, to have Steve touching him inside as well as his hands skimming along his sides, lips on his lips and his jaw and his shoulders and collarbones as he moves over him and through him. Steve’s throat is so close, Bucky can see the blood moving through his jugular, he can almost taste it, hot and salty and incredible. He reaches up - he can’t help himself, Steve said he could, Steve trust him, it’ll taste so good - he licks across Steve’s pulse, sucks, just a little. His skin is salty and nearly tastes right, so close, and he lets out a whimper. Steve notices, of course he does. He ducks his head down, lowers himself on his elbows so he’s closer to Bucky, until their chests are almost completely pressed together, and Steve can hear his voice rumble through him as he says, “You can take it, Bucky. You can bite.”

Bucky tries, one more time, in what he feels is a Herculean effort, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It doesn’t hurt. I like it. I-” he huffs out a breath, “I want you to do it.”

Fuck. At this point, Bucky decides that if God didn’t intend for him to bend to temptation, he wouldn’t have made Steve so ridiculously tempting. Steve’s neck is right there, so he bites, and the blood spills down into his mouth. And Bucky’s lying on his back with his legs splayed open around Steve as Steve fucks into him, melting him inside and his arms bracket Bucky’s head, Bucky’s kissing the bite letting the blood trickle between his lips, so gently, not sucking even the slightest, and it feels better than drinking a man dry. It doesn’t matter that they’re in some godforsaken camp in the middle of nowhere and a war, this is heaven. Steve, over him, is making the sweetest little noises, whining in his throat and brokenly moaning deep in his chest, his pace is fast and his dick is hard, and this is so obviously not in any way hurting him. So Bucky can just...let go.

 

 

 

When they’re twenty four, Bucky begs him to let them both go home to Brooklyn, but Steve won’t, so they don’t. It’s his fucking moral compass, and Bucky sometimes wishes he could tear it out of him, but then where would the pair of them be? Following Steve into battle is the same as following him into back alley fights is the same as loving him. Bucky would die to protect him, but he doesn’t have to. They have a team now, the Howling Commandos. Officially, Bucky’s the sniper, and it’s true that he’s good with a gun. But he’s so much faster now, and firing a gun is not all he can do. He is so fast that, Steve told him, his body is a blur to human eyes, they can’t track him when he moves. They experiment with his strength together, after the first night, and he is as strong as Steve. Stronger, if Steve is tired, because Bucky doesn’t get tired anymore. Not while he’s drinking Steve’s blood. He refuses to take more than a mouthful at a time, he refuses to take any of Steve’s strength while they’re in a war zone, and he only takes as much as he does so that he is powerful enough to better protect Steve. It’s too much like caving into the temptation that he’s been fighting all of his life, when he drinks from Steve, and the only way he knows it’s not a sin is because it’s helping him keep Steve safe. It feels sinful. In the night, in tents and dug outs, as far away from the other men as Steve’s rank will allow and silent with the benefit of years of practice, fucking. Perfect, and sinful. Don’t that just say it all.

It’s different now, from how it used to be. Steve’s body is towering now, but he’s still beautiful. Bucky doesn’t even have time to worry about their dynamic shifting before he realises it couldn’t. Steve’s better able to protect himself now, but Bucky is in no way redundant because there is an infinitely greater scope for Steve to get himself killed in war-torn Europe even than there was in the least friendly parts of the slums back home. They are the same way together now the same way they always were. The fact that Steve is officially his commanding officer apparently doesn’t matter much, in this surreal situation they’ve all found themselves in, where an idealist artistic-type punk with boxing and Basic training has been super-sized and put in command of a mixed race band of thrill-seeking pyromaniacs, and no one can tell him no because everyone back home knows him as the face of war bonds. So although Steve is nominally the leader, and they’d all follow his orders in a combat situation or die trying, most of the time it just kinda feels like they’re a pack of idiots let loose on the enemy by high command with an air of mild regret and incredulousness.

It’s odd and improbable, but it’s how he’s got to live now. He goes camping with Steve and a bunch of unknown but friendly men for days, sometimes weeks of just getting into and out of enemy territory, scouting out targets and assessing bases, with interludes of violent and terrifying firefights. Bucky kills soldiers before they have a chance to shoot and he takes eight bullets for his team just the first battle they have. After that, they’re deeper into enemy territory, and he looses count. His blood doesn’t even have time to stain his uniform before the wounds heal, the bullets falling to the floor. Officially being a sniper, ostensibly staying away from the fighting, is a good cover for remaining uninjured and remaining invisible whilst soldiers drop around them, but the others, they know that there’s something not right about him. Dum Dum saw him heal in days from a blast that should have killed or at least permanently crippled him, and the others may not be able to see him when he moves, but they know he turns up in places he shouldn’t faster than should be possible. But they also know that Bucky is Steve’s right hand man, his trusted childhood friend. Bucky’s always been great at putting on a charm when he needs it, and he puts it on now. It doesn’t feel right, being friendly and open with strangers after everything that’s happened. He trusted one team and lost them. But he is stronger now, and Steve is here now, and it will not happen again. He trusts Dum Dum and makes friends with the rest of the Commandos, Morita, Gabe, Falsworth, Dernier and in a couple of months he trusts them too. He has to trust the men at his back in order to sleep at night, and they are good men. And they know, probably, that he is not normal. He thinks they know that whilst Steve is their leader, Bucky is the reason that none of the Commandos loose their lives in action. He thinks that’s part of why they protect both of them with their silence. He could be wrong.

Really, what makes him trust them the most is the way they seem to know that he and Steve aren’t normal either, and they never do or say anything about it. So as they know the Commandos longer, Steve and Bucky stop trying to hide quite the way they have been so far. They’ve been sharing a tent the whole time, because they can only carry so many tents so pairing up makes sense, but after Falsworth opens the door on them with their blankets, pillows and sleeping bags swirled into one communal mess, and Bucky bleary-eyed and sex-mussed in Steve’s sleeping, fingerprint-bruised arms, and only says, “Coffee’s ready. It’s bloody cold out here and if the rest of us have to deal with it, I don’t see why you two should get to rest easy, I don’t care how romantic it is,” that they stop pretending they aren’t sleeping together too.

They start sitting as close together around the campfire at mealtimes as they would if they were alone. Steve leans on Bucky when he’s tired, the way he would back in their apartment, and Bucky decides he likes the reverse as well, now that Steve’s boney shoulders are well padded and cushioned with muscle. However, they don’t go any further than that, in public, not when Dum Dum watches Steve play with Bucky’s overlong hair as his head rests in Steve’s lap with an uneasy expression on his face. Bucky knows Steve just gave him a reproachful look and continued, but in private he asks Steve if they can just avoid explicitly affectionate stuff like that around the Commandos, because, “It’s not Dum Dum’s fault, it’s just how it is. I mean, you were literally braiding my hair. I know Morita doesn’t care for it much either. It’s only down to their loyalty to you that they’re coping so well as it is. I don’t want to push any of them past breaking point. They’re good men, they just think differently about it that the others do. Hell, we’d probably be like that if we weren’t, well, how we are.”

Steve sighs, mutters, “Breaking point, what breaking point, they all already know we’re fucking,” but he isn’t as obvious as that again in public. They’ve always been silent, they’ve never kissed in front of anyone else and their marks have always been strictly bellow the collarbones. They are well practiced at being surreptitious, so they just keep up the charade. It’s a bloody good job that no one else can see through Steve’s attempts at lying like Bucky can. He seems to have picked up at least enough skill to fool everybody else, probably from Bucky, at some point over the years. Bucky still knows when he’s hiding something, but Steve manages to pull the wool over everybody else’s eyes, just about.

Although, Steve does still hold Bucky’s hand tight enough that his knuckles go white when Bucky gets hit with shrapnel to the stomach and they can’t get back to base in time, so Morita has to get it out and there’s no anaesthetic, and he does finger-comb Bucky’s hair off his sweat coated forehead and murmur, “You’re ok, you’re ok, I got you, you’re so strong, I know it hurts but you’re safe now, only a little longer and then it’ll stop, you’re doing so good, I’m so proud of you, you’re safe,” continuously to him whilst Bucky’s eyes blurred with tears.

And after one particularly difficult, drawn out and complicated Hydra base takedown with more than a few close calls is followed by a week’s R&R in London, it is true that Bucky, elated with the fact of their continued existence to the point of feeling high on endorphins, bites his own tongue on purpose and deliberately drips a few drops of his blood into Steve’s mouth while they’re fucking for the very first time, which makes Steve come with a moan louder than any noise he’s ever made during sex before. It’s a strangled scream caught in his throat, it tips Bucky over the edge instantly because it’s the hottest thing he’s ever heard, and although it’s definitely loud enough for the others to hear in their adjacent rooms, no one ever says a thing about it, save for Gabe clapping Bucky’s shoulder at breakfast and laughing at a comment of Dernier’s, the only word of which Bucky can understand is “rabbits”.

There is also the time when Bucky doesn’t take too kindly to a beautiful woman in liberated Paris propelling herself onto Steve’s lap and kissing her way across his cheeks and down his neck before Bucky can yank her off, which results in dark bruises sucked across Steve’s collarbones and up his neck that evening which Bucky is very careful not to allow his spit to aid the healing of. They fade in two days, but they last a while first, fading into beautiful yellow, purple and blue blossoms under Steve’s skin that are clearly visible, and all the Commandos know that Steve didn’t bring anyone else back to the room he shares with Bucky last night. So the other Commandos know, and they don’t mind, and they don’t try to stop them, and that, more than anything, makes Bucky trust them with his life. And he and Steve test the limits, but they don’t break them in public.

In private, Bucky enjoys learning all the new ways he can make Steve come. When they don’t have a night mission, when it’s not his or Steve’s turn to look out, when they have the canvas walls of a tent to protect them from eyes and the elements, that is what he lives for. Steve’s body under his or over, Steve in him or him in Steve, and Steve’s blood in Bucky’s mouth. He learns to take a tiny sip at a time, to let it heal up before biting again, because if he takes too much at once he comes and Steve loves the way the venom feels in him, but it’s effects don’t last long. Steve says it feels like a drug, like he’s drunk. If Bucky’s careful, it’s something he can make Steve beg for. He’ll give, and give, and give, and stop just when Steve’s about to come, completely untouched, or perhaps only with a single finger in his ass, pressing and rubbing him in a way that was easy to relearn, despite his body’s altered topography. Sometimes it’s enough to make Steve cry, and Bucky tells himself it’s ok to enjoy how beautiful he looks doing it because Steve's cock is weeping too. He likes to tease Steve as well, to give him something close enough to what he wants to be maddening, but not enough to get him off. Steve needs the venom in his bloodstream, but Bucky likes the way he can get Steve to open his mouth wide and watch with eager eyes as Bucky lets his spit slowly stretch and drip down into his mouth. The way he swallows convulsively and licks his lips for more. Bucky likes the way it looks when he gives Steve relief too, when he finally bites Steve’s bicep and licks and laves at it, finger-fucks him though it and leans back to watch Steve coming with his hands obediently clasped behind his neck.

And if Bucky’s spit gets him off, Bucky’s blood drives Steve wild. Just a drop on his lips will make Steve’s eyes roll back in his head in anticipatory pleasure, and any more will force gorgeous punched-out sounding whimpers, moans and pleas from deep inside his chest which Bucky knows for a fact no one else has ever heard. It can make him writhe and gasp like he’s shocked that anything can feel this good. It can make him clutch onto Bucky’s limbs like he’s the only real thing Steve knows. It can make him arch up and present his ass for Bucky like getting fucked is a physical need he’ll die without. A drop of Bucky’s blood can get Steve from nothing to fully hard in seconds, and it makes him pretty fun to play with. All Bucky has to do is bite his own lip and get Steve alone for a second in the morning, and after that he can lick his lips and the tips of Steve’s ears go red. Bucky’s careful though, of course he is. He doesn’t distract Steve when they’ve got a real mission to focus on, only in the aftermath, the debrief, any off-duty second they can get. Also he knows it’s probably bullshit, like the stuff about garlic and the crosses, but he doesn’t want to risk making Steve like he is. Steve tends to make it hard for him though. He likes to say things like, “I need it, please, please don’t do this to me. I’m begging you, I’ll do anything. It feels so good, you can’t just give me something that feels like that and then take it away. God, it’s like - it’s like after Project Rebirth, it’s like finally being able to breathe, it’s like being able to run," and sometimes he comes out with shit like "It’s like there are stars in my head and my blood and suns on your lips, please Bucky, please just give me a taste.” Fucking romantic idiot poet. How that counts as dirty talk, he's got no idea, but it sure as hell gets Bucky going.

Steve talks like it’s a drug, sure, and he talks like he’s addicted, but Bucky knows better. Bucky says he’s just glad Steve likes it, smiles, kisses him, and doesn’t tell him that he knows it can’t feel like a drug for Steve, because Steve can still think straight without it, he isn’t crippled by longing, he can still blush in front of beautiful fierce Agent Carter, can still keep his mind on the mission. He doesn’t tell Steve that he doesn’t know the first thing about addiction, because the way Bucky craves him, every part of him, in every single moment he is aware is beyond any emotion a rational, sane man could experience. Bucky doesn’t know, now, how he could live without this. There is no going back from this. And that’s kind of terrifying, because if Steve said no, if Steve told him to go...he doesn’t know if he could. The way he longs for Steve is a force inside him, and he doesn’t know if it’s strong enough to overwhelm every other part of him, including his conscience. He thinks it might be.

Steve learns ways round his tricks, Steve learns cut his own tongue on Bucky’s teeth and get his own back when Bucky resorts to tearing his clothes off like an adolescent. They have an argument and Bucky refuses to drink from him for a week, taking only from enemy soldiers, and after Steve ends their fight by pinning Bucky down and forcing his forearm into Bucky’s mouth, coerces him to drink until he’s completely out of his head with it Steve does it again and again. He does it because he says he likes the way Bucky curls into and clings onto him after like he can’t help himself, how adorable he is when he stays completely immobile even after Steve pulls away, can only spread his legs to get fucked. Bucky lets him because that much of Steve’s blood means he can hear the sound of Steve’s blood pulsing through the arteries buried deep inside him, he can feel the thrum of Steve’s pulse in every inch of Steve's flesh including the inches buried inside him, he can hear the creak of his bones and rush of his breathing as Steve moves over him, he can see the individual muscles contracting inside Steve’s irises as they dilate and, really, he _is_ helpless to stop himself. He’s careful though. He only lets Steve restrain him like that when they don’t have a mission later.

Bucky takes bullets and shoots bullets, drinks as much as he can from the enemy whenever he can, drinks from Steve whenever he allows himself the euphoria, and it must be ok, because it’s in order to protect Steve, and he’s lost track of what’s right and wrong now but it doesn’t matter just as long as Steve stays alive. Sometimes, some missions, there are moments when he can't be sure, and his ears rush with rapids and his vision speeds up and gets slower at the same time, his muscles freeze and turn shaky. But he always gets there in time, Steve always dodges the shot or the blow or the debris. With Steve's strength and Bucky's power, he lets himself believe that they can make it out of this alive.

 

 

 

When he’s twenty six, Bucky falls off a train.


	3. Chapter 3

Ten hours later, they find him. They are amazed to find him whole, and alive. His left side was almost shredded when they find him, his left arm mostly torn off, but he heals by the time they bring him back to the facility like no human ever could, until he is almost scarless. They keep him restrained, test him. They realise that he is the same man that Arnim Zola reported to have unparalleled strength, endurance and healing power, which nonetheless decreased drastically in the time that Zola had him. This man is strong enough to heal in a day what would kill another man, but by the third day they have him he’s as weak as a child. Whilst he is still lucid, he will not talk, although it appears that most pain-related methods of torture are as effective on him as they would be on an average person. Sleep deprivation appears to be quantitively less effective on him, although over the course of a week, it takes it’s toll. His core temperature is unusually low, and decreases with the progression of time he is held captive. His blood contains most of the expected components, although he does not appear to have a blood type. However, it also has traces of organic molecules which are completely unknown to science, the function of which can only be guessed at. The man is an enigma.

It’s puzzling, until the man, almost delirious, apparently, with pain and exhaustion from their methods of testing, begs for blood. Within minutes of the request being granted in the form of donated human blood in a bag, he is restored to full health.

(These are men of science. But they have heard the stories. Everyone knows the stories. Everyone knows about vampires. No one writes the word down on paper. Everyone knows vampires do not exist.)

They conclude that he has some kind of supersoldier serum, like Captain America’s, but that the Americans must have kept it under wraps because of it’s side effects, namely his boundless lust for blood. It would be disturbing for the American public to know what the US government has done to Captain America’s best friend. They, however, have absolutely no issue with a strong, fast, bloodthirsty super soldier.

The first thing they try to do is, of course, to replicate the effects of the serum. There is no end to what they could do of an army of men like him. At first, (lead by the myths that none of them believe in) they try feeding some of his blood to an ordinary human. It looks hopeful at first; his blood has restorative properties for the recipient, and also produces an affect which appears to be comparable to an endorphin high, although it appears to be longer-lasting and more potent, coupled with a slight amnesiac effect. However, although his blood is useful for wound healing, it does not permanently effect the subject's biology in any way.

Next, they try direct transfusion, and although that heightens the effects of the natural high induced, no permanent transformation of the hosts’ tissue is recorded, no matter how much blood is pumped into them. Instead, they try to isolate and identify the individual unique components of his blood, but they cannot understand the structure or functions of the molecules they find, so they cannot replicate their effects. It is obvious that his teeth are sharper, his muscles faster, his brain less fatiguable and his spit a natural drug, but none of those things on it’s own results in a creature like him. The teeth and the spit are of no use to them, and the secrets of his muscles and brain appear so deeply lodged in his blood, glands and digestive system that to uncover them would require nothing less than a vivisection that would quickly become an autopsy, and then they would loose the only specimen like him that they had. 

(This is looking less and less like something the Americans could have done. This is nothing like Project Rebirth. Still, no one says the words. But this man has not been engineered. He must have been born.)

It's a last ditch effort, they know, but their superiors require results, and soon. So they try sexual reproduction. There's no point in using sexual intercourse for insemination - there is no way that the subject would cooperate. He fights them at every opportunity he gets, constantly tries to escape their imprisonment and requires restraints for even the most simple procedures. Instead, a semen sample is procured. The subject struggles and complains, but whatever his physiology, it transpires that he is still as vulnerable to their methods as any human male. A combination of drugs and specialised machinery does it's job. They artificially inseminate ten female surrogates, to start with. Of course, if all goes well, they will soon inseminate more. Seven of the women miscarriage, within weeks. Three of them carry to full term, but the products of the pregnancies are stillborn. Whatever the Americans have done to this man, they have changed him enough that his genetics are no longer compatible with a humans.

Or, whatever he is, he is not a human, and possibly never was. They still do not write the word vampire on paper. But it is possible that the subject is a different species. In which case, it is suspected that there are some members of the population who do have the ability to procreate with this species, although they must be in the extreme minority. Perhaps there are some with a genetic predisposition allowing successful conception, or perhaps it is only with another member of the same race that reproduction is possible, perhaps sexual reproduction would have been an option, if this were not the only one of whatever species he is that they've ever seen.

The explanation is unclear. The classification of the subject is unclear.

Perhaps if they had enough time, enough funding, to canvas a racially and geographically diverse population, to inseminate many more women. But they do not have the time, or the money. The project has already gone over it's allotted budget. The profitable world war is over, and this new silent secret war receives a lot less government funding. They conclude that they cannot make more of him, whatever he is, so he’s going to have to be good enough. It is unfortunate, but they still at least have this one perfect soldier.

If only he would do as he is damn well told. They subject him to the normal reconditioning process. Sleep deprivation, torture, solitary confinement, a relentless training schedule. Still, the first time they give him a mission with the promise of a full blood meal at the end of it, they nearly loose him in the field. They punish him aptly of course, and the second time they starve him first, but this time he escapes and lasts almost two days out of their custody. 

So they transfer him to Russia’s Red Room for an experimental combination of the new mind-editing technology and drug therapy, and it works marvellously. The man has no memory of his past life, or self, and will do and believe whatever they tell him. They own him, right down to the soul. He stops struggling, stops trying to escape, mostly, and once he has none of his self left to cling to in resistance, pain appears to be a much more effective motivator. So they tell him that the war against America is for the greater good, that his loyalties lie with Mother Russia and Hydra, and condition him to drink from no one but his target. Effective as he is, the newly christened Winter Soldier is unfortunately expensive to maintain between missions, because the electroshock reprogramming has to be done at least three times a week and it takes six times as much of the normal dosage of the drugs to make him adequately complacent, so they put him on ice when he is not needed.

Overall, the project is eventually very profitable, and continues to be so over many years. Of course, one day the subject will become too expensive to maintain, or his mental or physical state will deteriorate until he is useless, and then he will be decommissioned, but his hardy biology will probably ensure the continuation of the project for the forceable future. Decades, possibly. 

 

 

 

He does not know who or what he is. He does not know how old he is, he does not know his name. All he knows is that he is a soldier, the Winter Soldier, and this is a war. His superiors tell him that he is a weapon, that he is superhuman. They call him Fist of Hydra, and it means animal. They keep him in a cage, wash him with hoses, punish him for ever acting as if he were human, for trying to speak or ask questions or beg, for trying to be friends with team members or for showing mercy to targets, for refusing or resisting orders, or for trying to own things. They let him out to feed, but only on the people they want him to. They keep him cold when they don’t need him. When he wakes they feed him on blood through an IV drip but it is barely enough to keep him alive, it does not fill his stomach and it does not sate him. They equip him with the weapons he needs, and they send him out on missions and he kills people. Sometimes he is allowed to drink them, and it is bliss and hell. Drinking a person dry is the most intense pleasure he has ever experienced, but the moment he feels the heart stop beating it feels like his does too, it feels like a part of him dies with his target. If there is no time or he has to use a gun, they feed him when he gets back to base, when he gets back from his mission, the blood is in bags but he can take as much as he wants and it is almost as good. They clean him next, cold jets aimed at his body. And then they- 

It’s the procedure. It’s necessary to maintain optimum functioning. It’s a necessary evil, a little like him. It recalibrates his brain to make it easy for him to follow orders. It makes him a more efficient weapon.

This is what they tell him. It feels like a punishment, it feels like whips and tasers and clubs inside his skull and it makes him forget in a way that terrifies him. The cold, he does not mind so much. The cold is sleep, it is a welcome refrain from the fighting. But the procedure is the worst pain he knows, and he knows that he has tried to run from it before. He thinks that’s why they put the needles that dull the world into his veins, to stop him running again. Or maybe that’s why they cage him. Or why they strap electrocution devices onto him when he goes out on a mission, and why they put the disks under his skin to track him and hurt him. Or maybe all that is just because he’s an animal, and he doesn’t deserve any better.

 

 

 

He thinks, alone at night, that he used to be something more. That he used to be, if not a man, then something close. There used to be a reason to fight this war, he thinks. There used to be- He used to be better. He used to have a home, and he had...someone. He had someone he would have killed and died for in a heartbeat, who never gave even the vaguest threat of punishment. There was once a reason to endure even the worst pain, because everything about that person was a balm. An order from that person was not an order, it was doing something good. Doing something right. It was praiseworthy. The Soldier can remember, a long time ago, people used to praise him sometimes. There was once a reason for what he is and what he does. He doesn’t know how much of what he thinks is true and how much is subconscious self-deception to force himself not to purposefully screw up the next mission so badly that their only option is to kill him. He does that because no matter how much he wants it to end, there is no point, they will only find another, and he doesn’t want them to ever make another like him. Either way, faraway truth or self-deception, it’s a nice thought, the idea of an owner who treated him well and a reason to fight this war, but whatever the reason was, he can’t remember it now. It’s been a long war, after all. He doesn’t know how old he is, but he feels ancient sometimes.

 

 

 

A mission, like any other until it isn’t. He’s eliminating a target named Fury on a roadway in a densely populated urban area called Washington DC in North America. He co-ordinates with a strike team to isolate the target, and then utilises a bazooka for the death-stroke. He is starving, the way he is usually kept, and his mouth is already watering as he goes over to the upturned vehicle to drain his target.

But his target is not there. His target has escaped. The Soldier has failed his mission.

He is punished until he screams and begs the way his targets sometimes do, until he is pleading for release or forgiveness or death, and receives neither but is mercifully granted a second chance. His target is tracked to an apartment building, so he gets transport there and shoots Fury through a window and a drywall. He is not permitted to drain him, as further punishment for his recent failure, so he runs, but there is a man chasing him. The man has golden hair and blue eyes and a shield that he throws, so the soldier catches and throws it back, and runs again.

When he gets back to base, he is told that the next part of the mission is to capture the man with the shield, who is called Steven Rogers, and the allies he is working with, Natasha Romanov and Samuel Wilson. Steven Rogers is very powerful, he is told. He was a Captain in a previous age, a warrior in an ancient war, and he has enhancements similar to the Soldier’s own that have enabled Hydra’s enemies to bring him back from the dead. (The Soldier wonders if they can do the same to him. The Soldier wonders whether he will ever be permitted to die.) The Soldier is ordered not to make direct contact with either Steven Rogers or Natasha Romanov in any way. Samuel Wilson has a pair of bionic wings, but his employers do not anticipate that this will be a problem for him.

He is transported to the relevant location. Again, he co-ordinates with a Strike team, and they shoot at the car the targets are driving until they are forced out of it and onto the road. A firefight ensues, and the woman, who is called Natasha Romanov, shoots at him. He hunts her down, but she is well armed, and she electrocutes him before he can kill her. Then he is fighting Rogers in the middle of the road and the man is as strong as he is. He throws the shield and the Soldier throws it back, and the sense of familiarity goes further back than the last mission, for the first time in a long time. He almost feels like he knows this man from somewhere else. Then he looses his mask and Rogers says, “Bucky?” and it-

Echoes, echoes through his head, _that’s me, I know him_. He’s never felt his before - or has he? Is this familiar? He used to want to run -

“Who the hell is Bucky?” He spits, even though he is not supposed to make direct contact with this man, is not supposed to ask questions of anyone every, is not supposed to engage with his targets at all, and he never has before. Rogers - Steven - he looks sad. He looks like someone close to him has died. The Soldier knows what that looks like, he’s seen it on the faces of secondary targets who had time to watch the primary target’s death, he knows, and it looks like pain, misery, shock, horror -

Then the strike team have finally caught up and they’re putting cuffs on Steven Rogers and they’re taking the Soldier away. They take him back to base and give him blood to drink, and it’s good, because he’s been starving since they woke him, but then his employer comes. The Soldier says, “I knew him,” and his employer tells him it is from the previous part of the mission, but he knows it is not, he knows that the sense of familiarity goes further back than the last mission, for the first time in a long time. His employer is trying to placate him, to pacify him, his employer is telling him the nice words they always roll out when he gets difficult, about doing good work, aiding great causes and furthering the greater good, but he is not stupid. He is old, he has lived a long time, he has been promised tomorrow's utopia for decades and it has never come, he has been alive for so long and this war is never-ending. He is not stupid, he is just forgetful, and it is the procedure’s fault that he is, it’s their _fault_ -

He says, “I knew him,” again and his employer slaps him across the face. The Soldier turns and snarls, bares his teeth, because a lifetime’s worth of “Fist of Hydra” - _animal, worthless, monster, ours, tool, do as you’re told_ is surging through his head, but now he can remember Steven Rogers and he knows that he used to try to run, and he knows that he could try again. He could kill everyone in this room, his employer included, before they could even touch him, he could run before they could even move -

Someone presses a button and electricity jolts through his body. It comes from everywhere at once. It comes from the ground, from the air around him deep into his bones, his spine, his head, into every nerve in his body at once. It comes from the plates they put under his skin and it makes his flesh sizzle and burn. He screams through clenched teeth and tastes his own blood, thick and heavy and sickening on his tongue, flattens himself instantly to the chair in an obvious pose of submission, head back and neck bared, arms on the chair’s open restraints. The pain stops and his ears ring. His body feels like an elastic band pulled too far. The after-shadow of agony is still pain. People around him strap him down while he breathes, tries to think. Steven Rogers, the man on the bridge, is important. There’s no way of knowing how, but he makes the Soldier think of running. Running is good, he needs to run -

Someone presses another button, and the procedure starts.

 

 

 

A mission, like any other until it isn’t. He’s eliminating a target named Steven Rogers in a hellicarier hovering above a densely populated urban area called Washington DC in North America, and the man has a shield which he throws at the Soldier. The Roger’s mission objective is to plug a chip into a computer, and the Soldier’s mission objective is to eliminate him before he can. He has a gun and knives and his mouth, and he’s full and strong on a blood meal he can’t remember drinking. But Rogers - Steven, something in him says - he’s starting a forest fire inside the Soldier’s head. It’s burning, beautiful, shining and bright and it hurts. Steven says, “Bucky,” and he means the Soldier, he means the Soldier’s name is Bucky, and that is ridiculous because he does not have a name but-

Before his most recent procedure, he can remember that his employer told him that he knew the man on the bridge from his previous mission but the sense of familiarity goes further back than that, even, he knows. The Soldier has not felt familiarity like this in a long time. And he has always thought that once, there was a reason - something or someone, he doesn't know - a reason for fighting, for enduring pain, a reason why the endless war he fought was worth winning.

Fire, fire in his head, it feels like a physical pain. They’re fighting, and he knows he should be winning but he’s not, because this man is strong. That, and the Soldier is distracted; the man smells familiar, smells good, and the Soldier wants to bite, but somehow, intrinsically linked to that sweet-rich-full smell is the idea of restraint, of...gentleness? The urge _not_ to hurt... He doesn’t know but he knows that he can’t eliminate this target. He can’t kill this man. Not this one, because...

He fights slower, like a human would, fights with fists, kicks and a gun instead of his teeth even though usually one bite to the neck is enough to make a person too weak to fight. And Steven is strong, he knows that, perhaps as strong as him but he’s going easy on the Soldier too. But mission objective is still mission objective for both of them and-

Steven says, “Bucky,” and it’s like an activation code, it’s like deeply embedded programming, it’s like a command even though there is no order, he has to - what? Not hurt? To protect?

Steven gets him in a choke hold and he tries to break it and he can’t, and the room fades to blackness and it’s almost a relief. Steven’s body is behind him and it’s warm, and somehow that matters, it’s making something deep inside him feel like it’s falling. And the darkness swallows hearing and consciousness too now, and he’s not as scared as he should be, because although unconsciousness makes him vulnerable, this man could have killed him already and has not.

He wakes and the man is close to fulfilling his objective, and fear jolts through the Soldier like an electric current, an echo of the pain he’ll feel if he fails this mission. He shoots the man, but _no, don’t hurt, can’t, protect_ , so he aims at the midriff. The fear inside him abates and the mission-orientated part of him is satisfied but he is not.

Then Steven says, “I won’t fight you,” and drops his shield. He can’t fight this man, he cannot fight someone who refuses to fight back. He has done, before, so many times, he has killed people begging for mercy, but not this person, not this man, not Steven, and then Steven says, “‘Cause I’m with you to the end of the line.”

The end of the line. The end of this war. And he remembers that once there was an end to this war, there was an escape from this limbo he lives in. There was once a reason to exist. And the realisation that this man is that reason smashes into his incredulous mind like a meteorite in a shower of sparks and light and rightness and he can feel it changing him, carving out a crater in his world-view and rewriting his programming. It’s overwhelming and huge and he doesn’t know what to think or feel-

The world collapses and explodes and his reflexes save him, and his confusion is cut short. Recently rewired instinct takes hold and tells him, save. He dives for Steven Grant Rogers, grabs him with the strong arm, the one Steven didn't just dislocate and swims for the shore of the river with his injured arm and frantic kicks. He shoves Steven’s inert form across his back so that he can breathe, although it means his own head is constantly ducking below the surface of the water and he chokes on water that tastes of filth and metal and air that smells of burning. He gets them to a beach and drags Steve up onto it. He checks that Steve is still breathing. He is. Now that his newfound instincts are quiet, their mission having been accomplished, he begins to think again.

He realises his mission is not accomplished at all, his mission is alive and well when he should be dead, he has failed his mission and he will be punished -

He quells that panic quickly. He has changed. Old programming resurrected, an older form risen from the ashes of who he was. However, he feels that the process is not complete yet. He is not wholly sure of what has changed, of who he is now. He is in flux, he can feel it, he is in free fall, he is tumbling into chaos like the wreckage of the helicarrier, and although he is not as afraid as he probably should be, he is still afraid.

Steven is breathing, and there are people coming, sirens coming closer. Steven is safe, so his mission is accomplished.

The Soldier leaves Steve on the shore and finds a clump of bushes dense enough for him to hide in. Because he is running. Running away from Hydra, because they call him their Fist but they are not his reason for fighting, and he will not fight for them any longer. He is sick of their pain. He is sick of the endless monotony of constant misery. He has changed, he has found his purpose. He has longed to run for so, so long, even when could not remember. Steven has reminded him. 

His first priority is to remove any claim of theirs on his body so that he can belong to Steven, as he is sure he once did. They pushed the discs to inflict pain and track him with satellites into his flesh, so he digs them out with his fingers. They are just under the skin, above the muscles in his biceps, thighs, his shoulders. Hydra thinks he doesn’t know about them, but despite he always remembers them because he can feel them itching, he can feel his body trying to heal around him. They don’t really register most of the time though, while his hunger usually feels like a demon trying to crawl up his throat. There are metal bands around his ankles, wrists and neck too but he tears them off, although it cuts deep into his fingers faster than they can heal. His blood even has time to fall from the deepest cuts before they heal, and he watches it with morbid fascination. He barely ever bleeds, even from their worst punishments, except when they starve him and he cannot heal. He licks the blood into his mouth, but it doesn’t taste right. It’s not like human blood.

He comes out of the bushes with bloodstained hands and clothes, so he walks until he finds clothes stores, looks for one with poor security. He takes clothes - plain, nondescript colours and a cap to hide his face, a band to tie back his hair - and puts them on in their changing room, leaves through the back exit. He dumps his more conspicuous tactical gear in a dumpster, but he keeps the knives and the guns, his holsters and sheathes, puts them under his clothes instead of over them. He is now untraceable and unnoticeable.

His next instinct is not one of the shiny new ones born of old red bitterness and his newfound purpose, but something deeper down and darker. His next instinct is to feed. He could not feed from his last target or from Steve, and he doesn’t know how much blood Hydra gave him while he was unconscious but it isn’t enough, right now he’s starving again. Every person he walks past on the street smells appetising, and there is no directive, no handlers, no employers, he can take whichever one of them he pleases.

Except, he can’t, because with every step the tumbled new instincts in his head settle into a recognisable pattern, and each one slots into the parts of himself that have felt empty for so long, and he does not feel like an animal when he thinks of Steve. He has always hated killing, it has always felt wrong. Now he knows that he does not belong to Hydra, that he is Steve’s, and Steve never told him to kill. When he was with Steve, killing was forbidden. It was a last resort, to be avoided at all costs, so now that he has remembered who truly holds his ownership, he will not kill again. But now he’s walking through the streets of Washington DC and the arm Steve injured has healed but he is hungry, and he cannot feed.

He sleeps for a few hours in a dumpster in a back alley. It is hard, because this is not a secure location, this is not a base, this is the field, but he cannot go back to base now. He does not have a base now. There is no end to this mission, and there are no parameters either. He is lost and alone and starving and exhausted, and one of those he can fix, so he must sleep. It is hard, but it is not impossible. He knows that no one on these streets can hurt him, and it is highly unlikely that any trained agent will succeed in finding him, in this buzzing hectic maze of a city, if any have even been assigned to look. So he sleeps, and when he wakes, he considers what his next actions must be. There is no mission and no parameters, and he has abandoned his employers. However, he still has an owner. He still has Steve. The only person who might know what he is supposed to do is Steve Rogers. A warrior from an ancient war. Perhaps even as old as the his own never-ending conflict. He does not dare to visit Steve, because it’s too risky. Hydra may be looking for him, and they could predict that his original owner is the first place he would go. Instead, he must be creative. It’s not a trait that Hydra ever encouraged in their Soldier, but it’s one he always retained.

Hydra trained him how to use modern technology in case he needed information whilst he was between check-ins in the field and to prevent targets using modern devices to call for help. He walks around the city, looking for a computer he can hack, steal or use. He sees plenty of options, phones, tablets and laptops he could easily take from absentminded people, but he does not want to draw attention to himself. If he commits a crime, he may be discovered, reported. It may cause his face to be known. Instead, he finds and enters a library, on the basis that a public store of information should have access to the internet, and finds a computer he can use. He quickly hacks into the government mainframe, and locates the hospital that Rogers.S, TOP PRIORITY; PRIVATE PATIENT is being treated. It’s not far. With another ten minutes' looking he finds Steve’s room number and the hospital’s layout, then uses the internet to plan a route to it by public transport. He catches the metro to get to it. It is unpleasantly crowded, and he has to constantly remind himself how far superior his own training is to the capabilities of anyone likely to be around him to keep himself calm in their presence. He breaks into the building opposite the hospital, climbs to the roof via the fire escape and locates where Steve’s room must be, according to the building’s blueprints.

He sees that Steve does not have an intravenous drip, so they can’t be drugging him heavily, which is good because it means that Steve is less easy to surreptitiously poison. He is conscious, so it is likely that he would be able to call for assistance in case of a surprise attack. Steve is pale, which is his own fault, he knows. His bullets, his hand, his gun. But he is sure that Steve must realise that there was nothing else he could have done, that obeying Hydra was not an option. Steve must realise that he was stolen from him, that Hydra wiped him, imprisoned him and controlled him, and he never would have hurt Steve if he had the choice. Steve must realise that he was trying, that he did not shoot at his head, he must realise who saved him from the river. Steve _must_ realise. If he explains, if he tells him what it was like, if he begs forgiveness-

Someone walks into Steve’s room and the Soldier cocks his gun and aims based on the best guess for the intruder’s head he can make from his limited view of the room before he takes his next breath. But Steve smiles, speaks, and the man laughs and takes a seat next to Steve’s bed. The man, he sees now, is Sam Wilson, the winged man. Wilson does not appear to be crippled by the loss of the wing he tore from him. He does appear to be Steve’s friend. Friends, he knows about from watching the men around him, in the various teams assigned to work with him. Friends watch out for each other, covering each other in combat situations, and outside of combat they spend time physically near each other and make each other laugh. Wilson makes Steve laugh. That makes him feel...feel something. Something other than fear, or rage, or guilt. He feels - is it called jealousy? It feels like he wants to drag Wilson away from Steve, push him out of the room and lock the door, because Wilson has no right to be near to Steve, or to make him laugh. Because that is part of his own function, he realises. That was part of being owned by Steve, making him laugh. Keeping him safe, being close to him, and making him laugh. Although he knows from his briefing that Steven Rogers is a strong and capable target, he also knows that Steve needs protecting often, that he makes the world his enemy and so has to be protected from all of it, from everything and everyone. That used to be his job, he thinks. He was Steve’s friend. Before he was taken from Steve, a long time ago. So that must be why he feels jealous of Wilson, because he is impinging on his own duties. It is not a rational response, because Wilson is causing no harm to Steve, so he takes no action against him.

However, now he has thought of it, he cannot stop. Now he has seen Wilson with Steve, and acting as his friend, he fears that Steve has already replaced him. Perhaps Steve has no need for him anymore.

If he has no place with Steve, he has no place anywhere. He will never go back to Hydra. He has failed this mission so badly, has so thoroughly proven himself defective, they may well kill him for this, as he always hoped-dreaded they would. And besides, he has suffered long enough, so long, he needs the fighting to end now. But without Steve or Hydra, he may die anyway, because they will find him, and besides he does not know how to live, he has no knowledge of how to live, he is maintained, that is how he survives, he can’t -

But when he was Steve’s, he was not maintained. He did not kill, he drank without killing. Steve did not hose him down, he washed himself. There was no cold, and there were no procedures. Steve did not need those things to stop Bucky from running away. Steve was once a captain in a war long ago. Steve was his captain once, he is sure of it now. Steve commanded him, Steve owned him, but it was more than that, he remembers.

Because they were friends, and - the realisation is like dawn - he _wanted_ to protect Steve, he _wanted_ to be near him. Everything he did, he did because he chose it for himself. Hydra never let him choose, never even let him want, Hydra stopped him wanting, Hydra filled his head with scratchy cotton wool pumped from shunts pushed into his veins. Hydra punished him with pain, they made it so that he could not want, he could not even want to run away or to flinch or yell or bite them because if he did, they could lance him through with pain from the disks and beat him until he could not feel past his torso. He is familiar with need; Hydra only let him need the blood, because he was so starving it was pain without it, and they could take away blood until he became nothing but bestial instinct with no thought. Need was dangerous, need meant brief pleasure followed by guilt. Wanting is new, wanting is novel and unique, and also old and familiar, and there is no pain. And he has run, he is untraceable. His mission is complete and Hydra does not have him and _there is nothing to stop him getting what he wants._

The Soldier watches Steve in his hospital room for hours. Nurses, doctors come into Steve’s room, and they talk to Steven but they do not go near him with needles, so he does not need to intervene. Steve stays there overnight, and the Soldier does not move from where he is, because he has a perfectly good view of Steve’s room from where he is and there is no need to draw attention to his position. He does not sleep, because covert ops are very often carried out under cover of darkness and he cannot leave Steve without protection while he is most vulnerable. He lies on the rooftop of an apartment building watching Steve and keeping him safe, and he tries to understand want. He wants to be owned by Steve again. He does not want Steve to replace him.

 

 

 

He does not know how old he is or what he is or who he is, but he knows what he wants and he wants Steve. So he watches out for Steve, because it is part of his duty as Steve’s friend. He hides from Hydra and follows Steve everywhere he goes, and he does not feed. He wears caps to hide from cameras and changes clothes often and never sleeps in the same place twice. He watches from the shadows as Steve goes grocery shopping and jogging and for out lunch. He watches Steve chat with Wilson in parks and meet Romanov in cafes and he watches a man he identifies as Anthony Stark visit Steve in his apartment.

He was worried, before, in DC, about Steve replacing him with the dark-skinned man and the red-haired woman, but he realises now he need not have done so. He remembers, now, how they used to be, when he belonged to Steve. He remembers the warmth of a human body next to him with no threat of violence (there were a thousand times, he thinks, in beds, somewhere). He remembers the joy of making Steve happy (a smile, plush bottom lip taught across teeth, “You idiot,” and it’s affectionate, he wants to hear it again). He remembers the pleasure of protecting Steve, having him happy, safe and healthy (not bullet wounds, he protected Steve from illness, from his lungs, Steve tiny and wet-gasping for air through crackling lungs, he wishes he could breathe for him, and from punches, he’d take a hundred, he’d take a thousand beatings to protect Steve from pain, because-). He remembers how he loved Steve.

He sees Steve talk and laugh his friends now, and he sees how, although they make Steve happy, they do not fulfil the same duty that he used to. Steve does not touch them like he used to touch the Soldier. He does not fuck them either. So the Soldier thinks there is probably has a space left for him in Steve’s life.

He watches, and remembers, and thinks. The hunger grows stronger every day until it feels so strong inside him sometimes that it’s almost a separate entity, eating away at his insides so that at least one of them can have sustenance, but he ignores it. He thinks about how was devoted to Steve, he can’t believe that Hydra ever managed to make him forget it. How could he have forgotten his first owner when Steve used to treat him so well, he used to say, “I don’t know what I’d do without you, buddy,” he used to touch and his touch was a reward, it was comfort and home and addiction. Steve’s body was younger, once, that it is now, and he used to be smaller. Then Steve got bigger fast, he thinks, and he was unsure at first but Steve still needed him just the same. He thinks of bird-wing bones, and hollows, dips, ridges, shadows and rippling definitions, he thinks of hands running down lines like waves, like mountain ranges, like rolling hills, he thinks of one person being the whole world, and he feels a hunger like the bloodlust but stronger. He wants Steve Rogers. He wants to protect him, and be close to him, and to make him happy. And he can remember a dozen, a ten dozen times when he has fulfilled those parameters. He can remember touches layered upon words layered upon emotion - the memories are individually faded and blurry, like everything from long ago is, but the sheer volume of them carries enough weight to assure him of their truth. He thinks this feeling, this knowledge of better times has always been there, in the back of his head, behind a forgotten door, somewhere ignored and unneeded because it wasn’t about how to do Hydra’s bidding.

So when he follows Steve to an exhibit at the Smithsonian museum, keeping and eye on Steve and staying ten steps behind, and finds his face and name and history written on the walls, he is not really that surprised. His memory’s patchy, but he can fill in the gaps just fine.

When he is probably thirty something and also ninety-six, he remembers that Bucky is not an activation code, but his name. He remembers who he was.

 

 

 

Three days later, he watches from the shadows as Steve packs up his apartment and brings one suitcase with him on the train from Washington Union Station to Penn Station, New York. Bucky gets the same train, different carriage, stands to keep his sightline on Steve clear. It is hard, his hunger has made him weak. He drinks water sometimes, occasionally steals red meat, but he can feel himself getting weaker every day nonetheless. No matter. He holds onto the bars on the swaying train to keep himself upright and ignores painful memories of other bars and other trains and falling because they are in no way helpful. Still, he kind of wishes Steve had chosen to travel by car, despite how much harder it would have been to track him in one without being seen.

Steve already has an apartment in New York when he gets there. It’s in their old neighbourhood, more or less, although, really, so much has changed it’s no longer really old or theirs anymore. Bucky watches Steve for a week, but he realises fast that something has got to break soon. His hunger is beginning to grow out of his control. He has got into the habit of sticking to rooftops to avoid the temptation of being surrounded by flesh. He has learned the addresses of every butchers in ten miles’ radius so that he can steal raw meat from a different one every night. It isn’t enough, somehow, he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what he is, only that the blood he drinks needs to be human and fresh. He cannot, he will not feed, but it’s been weeks now, three, four maybe, he’s lost count and he can’t remember when Hydra last fed him. Now, his hunger is inhabiting every breath, has invaded every limb, haunts his every thought. He can no longer sleep through the night because the pain keeps him awake.

As Bucky lies awake and hears clock towers chime the beginning of his eighth day back in Brooklyn in the twenty-first century, he tries to think. Steve has an apartment, Steve is happy, Steve has friends. He is safe and alive, and likely to stay that way. That’s all Bucky ever wanted. Ensuring that was the Soldier’s last mission, and now it’s completed. It hurts him to even think it, but Steve no longer needs him. And whilst it’s possible he may be welcomed back into the circle of Steve’s arms, it is more probable he will be turned away. He is well aware that he has no right to live. He has committed war crimes, atrocities. The danger is so inherent in him that nothing and no once could burn it out, it's in his DNA and in every bit of training Hydra ever gave him. Death is the obvious and only solution to the problem of his continued existence, after everything he’s done, all the things that have been done to him, all the ways he has broken others and the ways others have broken him. No one and nothing can live like he does now, an existence which means only pain, and the memory of pain. To allow himself to die would be the best course of action, he knows that.

But.

But though he has been through so much and for so long, despite all of it Steve’s smell, his face, those words were enough to shine through all of that, to remind him of the way he was before. He has existed for so long in a vacuum of any kind of comfort or kindness. He survived all of that, and now, now that he’s remembered Steve, escaped Hydra and is finally free, _now_ he’s going to let it end? He is starving on the streets, stalking the only person he knows in the world and wracked each night with horrors of his past, and this is still better than anything else he’s experienced in the last however many decades. Steve is alive, he’s alive and safe and Bucky could go to him, he could touch Steve’s face with his hand and -

But his hands have crushed throats and pulled triggers, he has cowered before those he should have fought and fought those he should have saved -

But he saved Steve, he did that. And he has suffered for so long, surely, surely he is due some kind of reward? Some kind of pleasantness, at least, something, something good after all of this. He's done horrible things, yes -

\- a little girl screams for her mother, dead in the other room and he bites, and learns that the blood of a child tastes better than that of an adult -

\- but he didn't want to. He may be starving now, but he is still thinking clearer than he had at any other point in the last few decades. Hydra scrabbled his brains like eggs and he couldn't think, he hurt all the time and it was his finger on the trigger but they're the ones who turned him into a weapon, it was their _fault_. He used to run, he's sure he tried to run. He didn't want to, he never wanted to, they kept him a cage and starved him.

So he will not seek out death. If he could, he would turn himself in. He would not expect the life of a free man, but he would ask for a pleasant prison. He would ask for enough blood to live, no more, and to be allowed to see Steve whenever it is convenient to him. Some music, perhaps, a few books. But he can't just turn himself into the authorities, because there is currently no stable and trustworthy organisation in the world that has the power to hold him, and anyway, no one can know what he is, or that he needs to drink blood to survive. They will turn him into an experiment, and he will not live through that again. 

He doesn't know what else to do. Steve saw him as he was before, as a monster, devoid of humanity, and still saw something in him worth loving, worth saving. And Steve was his first owner - or rather, friend, lover, commander, everything. Steve should help to decide whether he should be alive or dead. He may have a use yet for the Soldier, a mission or a task to complete. His head a swirling grey mess of thoughts like the sky in a storm so that he hasn’t got enough clear space to exist in, let alone to make decisions, so in the end, he doesn’t. He’s alone in a city where he knows no one and he barely knows himself, he’s starving steadily more day by day, he knows death is near and he can’t decide whether or not he should run, and in the end he goes to Steve because instinct dictates that he must, and for no other reason. Steve is home, and Bucky has been too lost for too long.

He watches Steve leave his house to go shopping, and moves for the first time in hours from his perch on the roof of the building opposite. Black spots appear in his vision when he pushes himself up. He moves despite them, climbs down the fire escape and the darkness has more or less stopped chewing on his vision by the time his feet hit the floor. He doesn’t know where Steve is but his run for groceries never usually lasts long. He walks the few steps from the alley where the fire escape comes out to the street at the front of the building, fighting the way the world is swaying alarmingly with every one, and sits in the doorway of the apartment building he was just on top of. He waits, and he does not think because he is concentrating on breathing in, out, calm and steady, breathing in the scent of the occasional passer by without reaching out, grabbing an ankle, pulling them to the ground fast and hard with a crack and -

He keeps a watchful eye out for Steve from beneath his cap. No one looks twice at him, a dishevelled bedraggled man sitting in a doorway, except for one woman who sniffs pointedly as she passes him on the way out of her building. Bucky by contrast holds his breath to ignore the smell of her blood, (so close and he’s so hungry, he knows he couldn’t resist it, he’s so hungry) waits for her to pass. She does, but it feels like an age, and when he breathes again it’s a gasp, and he can still smell the echo of her on the air, and it’s still almost too much. Perhaps this was a mistake, perhaps he shouldn’t have done this, come down to street level and put himself too far into the path of temptation. Perhaps he should go back to his rooftops to die, where strangers are safe from him, and forgo a last meeting with Stevie in exchange for lives saved. It’s selfish for him to remain here, around people, when he is a monster in so many ways, should be isolated accordingly.

But instinct brought him here, and now it won’t let him leave, and then he smells Steve before he sees him, and he’s glad no one’s walking near him when he does because the whimper he makes would be clearly audible. Steve’s smell brought him back into his own head after decades of absence from it, his head is still recovering from the shock of the explosion Steve caused, but he hasn’t been near enough to smell Steve since the hellicarrier, and now he’s had time to miss it, and to remember. Now, he has all of the memories that go with the smell of home-sex-love-devotion-Steve and he feels like he’s drowning under waves of memory of curled smiles against cheeks in the dark, he feels like he’s at the bottom of an ocean made of shared meals and a hundred thousand evenings of Steve bitching about some asshole or waxing lyrical about art or arguing with air about politics and always making dumb jokes over everything. There’s a surface of reason and common sense up there, maybe, but it doesn’t matter because he’s buried under the memory of a million nights spent together alone, kisses, touches, wet slick hot lips, sweat and moans and he hasn’t been touched for so long, he does not care if he never breathes air again as long as Steve’s scent is the last thing he inhales.

Steve says, “Bucky?” and he realises he stood, crossed the street and moved to stand in front of Steve as fast as his starving body would let him, and he doesn’t know what his face looks like but Steve’s looks simultaneously overjoyed and sick with fear. He is so close, close enough to touch and there is only euphoria -

Then the instant breaks and Bucky crumples to the ground as the blackness steals his vision, he’s blind and exposed on the street and he someone’s touching him, he wants to lash out but he’s too weak and anyway all he can smell is Steve, all he can hear is Steve saying, “Bucky, Christ, Bucky are you ok?” so he’s safe, because Steve loves him and Steve is his first owner and Steve will look after him. A hand pushes his head down and he lets it because it’s Steve’s hand, and his vision slowly comes back as he’s crouched on the pavement with his head down. When he can focus on the individual flecks of grit on the ground, he risks raising his head to meet Steve’s eyes again. This time his face holds mostly concern, but the joy is still there in his eyes and he is still beautiful. Bucky smiles, dazed, says, “Stevie,” and hears, “Hey buddy.” Steve’s arms are around him then, and his mind goes blank. Not with blackness, but with bright white calm. He has not been touched with kindness for decades, and despite the floods and oceans of remembering, none of the memories are as good as this. Steve’s body is close, warm even through his clothes, the pressure of his arms encompasses all of Bucky, one around his shoulder, one cradling underneath his arm, and every atom of Bucky’s existence is saturated by Steve’s smell. He would be limp in Steve’s hold even without the starvation. He loses himself in the unfamiliar familiarity of Steve’s smell, hardly feels himself being held up while Steve takes him into his apartment building, supports him up three flights of steps and holds him up again gets the door to his apartment open before finally lowering him to the couch. He only barely senses that he is being moved, and it only vaguely occurs to him that he’s in an unknown enclosed space with a prior target. Because it’s Steve.

“Ok Buck, there you go. Can you focus on me for a second?”

Bucky opens eyes he hadn’t realised he had closed, looks up at Steve and does his best to focus. Steve’s face kind of looks like he’s surrounded by blurry, hazy halo of light, but maybe that’s just Steve.

“Hey, there.” Steve’s smiling. He looks incredulous, and almost unfathomably beautiful, and like every familiar thing Bucky knows. “Ok, so you didn’t get hit in the head. Bucky, can you tell me; are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No.” Bucky smiles more, would laugh if he had the air. As if there’s anyone alive other than Steve who could ever get close enough to him to do permanent damage. Stupid Stevie.

“Well, if you say so.” Steve’s hands frame his face, his fingers run back into Bucky’s hair, and his eyes roll back in his head. He nearly moans, but manages to swallow it. Steve’s thumbs stroke Bucky’s cheekbones as he says, “God, you look thin - is that it, are you hungry?”

Bucky almost wants to frown; that had almost slipped his mind while Steve was caressing him, and he’s not too thrilled at the reminder. But, now he thinks of it...

Bucky turns his head so his nose bumps Steve’s wrist. The scent of Steve’s blood is -

Fuck, Steve’s scent is everything.

That ocean he was remembering, he’s drowning in it again.

His mouth is open and he’s panting over Steve’s wrist.

He doesn’t mean to, but smell and taste are so similar apart from how scent is drastically inferior, God, he just needs a taste, just a taste of it would be enough, he could fucking die happy if only -

He’s kissing open-mouthed and sucking, grazing with his teeth.

“Oh, ok, alright,” said calmly and kindly cuts through the daze. He remembers that there is a danger here. He is a rabid dog, and Steve is everything precious which cannot be harmed. His teeth are almost painful with the urge to bite and his spit’s dripping from his lips onto the delicate skin of Steve’s inner wrist. He jerks back in an instant, before his instincts can turn him into a drooling animal again. He falls off the couch Steve placed him on, falls to the floor, scrabbles backwards, legs flailing, until his back hits a wall. His vision’s gone again, fuck it. Oh well. He’s seen Steve again, that’s all he wanted, really...

The edges of his thoughts are getting fuzzy. He doesn’t mind. Hurts less that way. Steve’s scent is still all around him. It’s nice. He can go now. He’ll just go, now.

 

 

 

There’s white light shining through his eyelids, and something warm is covering his whole body apart from his face. His hunger has abated enough to let him think again, though he can still feel the vacuum of it sucking at his insides. There’s nothing hard, sharp, painful or cold touching him. There’s voices, too.

“-know, sorry, but I won’t let you. It’s just not happening.”

“Look. Captain-”

“Steve.”

“Captain Steve.”

“For God’s sake-”

“I know he’s your best friend. I know you want to believe he’s the good guy, but we cannot take that risk, not when what’s at stake is the safety of every person in this building. I take care of my own. Steve, this is where the woman I love _sleeps_ -”

“And I love that man sleeping there. So you can understand how strongly I am going to protest you putting anything other than saline in that IV, or anything at all around his arms. You will not restrain him. No one will restrain him, ever again, until I die, do you understand!?”

The room is quiet, and Bucky guesses it’s because Steve hardly ever shouts. He’s not sure if talking now would escalate or diffuse the tension, but he hates when Steve’s upset, so, “Steve,” he says, while he blinks his eyes open and waits for them to adjust. His voice sounds a little croaky, a little cracked. He swallows, tries again, but Steve’s already there.

“I’m here, Bucky, I’m here.”

“I know. I’m not deaf.” He can see the room around him now. It looks like a bedroom, and a pretty swanky one at that. It’s sparsely decorated but the furniture’s expensive. In it is one bed, a bedside table, a dresser, a window with a view of the Chrysler building, Steve, and a short man with ridiculously well-groomed facial hair, who sees him looking and jerks his head in a nod of greeting. He says, “Looks like we’ve got another joker on our hands. You can hang out with the bird, you two will have great fun. It’s tragic, it really is. Nice to see you awake, by the way, sleeping beauty-”

But Steve’s speaking over him, saying, “Ignore him. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, now,” Bucky says, at the same time as Neat Beard Man says, “Excuse me, what?”

Steve asks, “Are you sure?” and Bucky replies, “Yeah, I’m much better. Almost back to normal,” instead of ‘functionality regained, mission readiness imminent’, and barely has to think about it. And then, because Neat Beard Man still looks indignant, “Who is this?”

“He’s Howard Stark’s son. His name’s Tony and he’s the one putting us up.”

“Really. You’ve known me for two years and the best descriptor you can come up with is ‘Howard Stark’s son’, _really_ Steve-”

Bucky doesn’t realise he’s smiling faintly until he catches Steve staring at him and beaming, before Steve says, “You get used to him,”

The way Steve talks over Tony, casually inconsiderate, it’s just like how he used to treat the Commandos. People he trusted enough to disrespect. So that means that Tony is Steve’s friend. And that’s alright. It’s fine.

Tony says, “Oh, that's lovely, that is. I welcome you and your stray into my home, I offer free medical care and a luxury apartment, and this is the thanks I get.”

“I didn’t ask for the apartment.” Steve still hasn’t stopped studying Bucky’s face.

“Ungrateful! So ungrateful. Very poor manners. Your mother would be horrified.”

Steve just rolls his eyes at this, though Bucky thinks that this is probably an outrageously false statement. Sarah Rogers had known her own son, after all. If only for a few years.

Bucky licks his lips, considers his first words to the most important person in his world since he tried to put a bullet in him and decides to say, in a voice that comes out like scrubbed raw stone, “Same old punk.” He hopes Steve hears, _I remember_. He hopes he understands, _I love you_.

Steve reaches out for Bucky’s hands, holds onto the wrist of the one closest to him and twines his fingers with Bucky’s on the other. “God, I missed you,” Steve says, the grin on his face like dawn breaking, while Stark quietly mutters, “Unbelievable.”

“Yeah, me too.” Bucky wraps the hand closer to Steve around Steve’s wrist, in correspondence. And it’s true, God, it’s so true, but, “I couldn’t remember what it was I missed most of the time, though.”

The quiet flame of hope in the wrinkles around Steve’s eyes is extinguished with those words, and sadness and regret wells up from deep enough inside him to give Bucky vertigo.

Steve says, “I’m sorry. I should have looked for you, I should have found you-” His voice is even but Bucky can hear the edge of tears, has always dreaded that sound in that voice. It’s wrong, and it’s worse because he’s the cause. It’s not Steve’s fault, it was no one’s fault, Steve shouldn’t feel guilt over an accident like that, “You thought I was dead. It’s fine. There was no way for you to know I could survive that,” Bucky says, squeezing Steve’s fingers with his own in an effort to comfort him, then remembers that Stark is in the room. Steve sees him glance to Stark, then cocks his head in a movement so tiny there’s no way that Stark could recognise it for what it is, a shake of the head. _No, he doesn’t know what you are_. Bucky smiles a little to show he understands, and inside his heart’s singing because they haven’t lost this. He’s lost so much, but this wordless communication is still theirs.

“What do you remember?” Steve asks aloud.

“I don’t know - I don’t have any way to compare it to how much I’ve lost. A lot though, I think. And I went to the exhibition.”

Steve looks down and his smile is almost bashful. It’s a pretty regular expression on Steve. So damn proud, but always surprised when some one other than Bucky recognised his worth. And it took Bucky at least half a decade of love declarations before Steve got used to it from him.

“I liked it.” Bucky adds, just to watch the blush spread on Steve’s cheeks. “Lots of nice pictures. Very informative. Pity they missed some of the more obvious stuff though.”

Steve’s smile quirks, and he gently squeezes Bucky’s hands in his.

Stark clears his throat before asking, “So, um, now you’ve woken up and aren’t killing anybody, shall I go get Bruce to come and check you over?”

“I’m fine,” Bucky says, at the same time Steve says, “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

Tony doesn’t even blink, just says, “Ok, well, take some time to settle in or whatever, but it’s probably a good idea that we check for any, like, long-term injuries, hormone imbalance, sub-cutaneous tracking devices-”

The assertion that no one will come close enough to him to even test for those things is knee-jerk, but this instinct is one that helped him leave Hydra, so he follows the impulse to deter. The knowledge is there, it’s always been there, so he says, “No long-term wounds were permitted, they would have hindered my effectiveness. The drugs that were regularly administered to me have a half-life of approximately three days, based on how often they were injected. There were six subcutaneous trackers and remotely operated shocking devices, I removed all of them myself. I’m fine.”

“Ok, if you say so.” Tony shrugs. “Just so you know, if you change your mind and you want a second opinion, all you have to do is ask. The machines I can use to scan you wouldn’t even have to touch you. You wouldn’t have to be in an enclosed space either.”

This consideration, which appears to be without agenda, had never been shown to the Soldier. Bucky can remember kindness though, as surely as he remembers Steve, and he remembers how to say, “Thank you for the offer.”

“Right. Look, Steve, Bucky’s got some manners - learn from him.” Tony’s eyes flick to where their hands are still wrapped up around each other. “And I’ll just go then, shall I? Yeah, I’ll go.” Tony’s backing out of the door as he says, “Tell Jarvis if you need anything,” and closes it on the last word.

Steve looks to Bucky, and neither of them speaks for a moment. Then Steve asks, “Are you really ok, Buck?”

“Yeah. I mean, I will be. It’s fine.”

"I...I should tell you. There was a file, it - It, well. It says what they did to you. I'm," Steve's face crumbles like it did when he was younger and his frustrated anger brought him close to tears, "I'm so sorry that happened to you. I wish I could have stopped it, if I'd known you'd survived I'd have-"

"I know you would have, Stevie." Bucky tries to smile reassuringly, tugs Steve closer to him by their joined hands. "It wasn't your fault. It was bad, but it's over now. I'm not going back."

"No. Never." Steve leans forward and rests his head on Bucky's shoulder for a moment. Bucky remembers, in a moment of startling clarity, two boys on their knees on the scuffed floorboards of a cold-water apartment, hanging onto each other and saying, breathlessly, I do. He blinks and, now, Steve’s saying, "That file. It’s got some information about how you’re biologically different from most people,” and what a very Steve way of putting it that is, “but I haven’t shown it to the others. No one apart from Natasha’s seen it, and she can be trusted with secrets.”

That, and the flash of red hair and pain in his nerveless arm, that rings a bell. “Natasha - you mean Natalia Romanova?”

“Yeah, do you know her?”

“I…” a mission, shots which didn’t hit their target and - “No. I just met her once. It wasn’t…”

“No, she told me. Odessea, right?”

"Right." He doesn’t know when or where it happened, but he's seen that word in the subject line on the front of a folder and he remembers being punished when he told them he’d spared her life because collateral damage was unnecessary, that leaving less people dead was more efficient, and had the audacity to look his commander in the eye as he said it. They liked to beat the confrontational out of him.

"You don't need to worry though, she won't hold what happened to you against you. No one here will." 

Bucky is glad to hear Steve say that, he is, but he's not sure that he believes Steve. Steve's always been kind and understanding, has always loved him despite his flaws, but Bucky knows that it's not what's happened to him that's made him a monster, not really, not completely, but what he's done. What he is. Yeah, Hydra made him worse, so mostly what he did when they had him was their fault, but they weren't the ones that made him into the predator he is; it was still his body that did those things, his mind that planned the kills. He is and has always been a killer. 

Steve asks him, “Do I even want to know what happened to you to make you act so out of it at my apartment, before?”

“Nothing. It was nothing. I was just hungry.”

“Hungry - shit, Bucky, you must have been starving, you were barely talking!” Steve looks troubled to the edge of fear.

“No! No, I wasn’t starving, I just...” Bucky can’t bear to see Steve so worried, so he can’t let the truth hurt him. “I was sorta confused, after, after everything and I -Is this room secure? Are we being overheard?” Steve shakes his head in the way that really does mean no, and Bucky trust him, so he admits, “Well, I didn’t want to...hunt. Try and find someone. Didn’t trust myself.”

Steve still looks concerned. “How do you feel now? Do you still feel hungry?”

Yes.

But he still isn’t safe. He’s still just an filthy, base animal. He still won’t take Steve’s blood, he’s still not deserving of it. Despite that, having Steve so close is making him stupid again. The faded hunger doesn’t seem to matter anymore. What he wants is the intimacy, the closeness. He wants to be with Steve, he wants them to be inseparable, he wants to have part of Steve inside him again. And...and even though it’s bad, and wrong, and always has been, he remembers Steve’s flushed face, slick lips as he says, a thousand years ago and yesterday, in a tent in Austria just miles away from enemy lines, the joy and shock of hearing the words  _“Bucky that felt - it was - It felt good. It felt like being...overwhelmed. Everything just went out of focus and there wasn’t anything left except...feeling good. It was like a rush of hot and white, and then like floating. It felt, well. It felt like sex. I really wouldn't mind doing it again.”_

Steve sees him hesitating and starts to pull away the hand that’s holding Bucky’s wrist, and he knows, _he knows_ that Steve will put it to his lips and say, “Drink”, and he will because he’s a thoughtless beast that can’t stop itself, and he does not know if he will stop after, if he will be able to stop, because he hasn’t exercised control over himself in years, and he might kill Steve after all, after all this time and hunger and _everything_ , he could still kill Steve-

He grabs hard onto Steve’s wrist so that he can’t pull away, and says as decisively as he can, with the practiced deception of the boy who never admitted to sodomy in two years of confessions, “No, Stevie, I’m fine. Whatever you gave me intravenously seems to have been enough. I feel much better.”

Steve knows that that’s not the whole truth, but Bucky guesses that hearing him together enough to lie convincingly has reassured Steve that Bucky’s ok. “Well, alright, if you’re sure. But the offer stands, ok? Just ask. Or, well, you don’t even have to ask, really.”

Steve’s body, willing, open, allowed, he can take as much sweet-salty-life as he wants, he can _take_ -

The shudder is something Bucky feels all the way up his spine and through his mind, but he suppresses it enough that Steve can’t see it. He manages to mumble, “Thanks, maybe later,” breathes, blocks the want that comes with Steve’s scent, waits for his mind to clear.

Through the foggy mess of his head, he hears Steve say, “Is there anything else you need? The bathroom, or...?”

Actually, he probably does smell awful. And he’s been concertedly ignoring the taste of the inside of his mouth for a few weeks now.

“Yeah, actually, a shower’d be great.”

“Ok, sure.”

Steve lets go of his hands while he sits up from the pillows he’s been propped up against. As he turns and swings first one, then the other leg to the ground the dizzy, sickening blackness swarms back in around him and the void in his stomach clenches. The world swims a little, but he can still make out Steve reaching for his shoulders, his face concerned all over again.

Steve asks, “Bucky, are you sure-”

“Yes,” he interrupts before Steve can make him that offer again. He breathes, once, twice, ignores Steve’s smell and stands. He is glad to belatedly realise that he’s still in his own clothes - or at least, the clothes he stole most recently, a few days ago. Probably Steve insisted that no one touch him. He is so glad. He does not ever want to be touched whilst unconscious by unknown hands ever again. Steve is still hovering near him, over-helpful but hiding worry, ducking his head to glance back and check Bucky’s steps as he leads him out of the richly furnished bedroom and through into the equally sumptuous bathroom.

“There’s towels - there. Soap, shampoo,” Steve says, pointing. “The tap is simple, just twist it like that for hot, that’s cold. You can use as much as you want. I can get you spare clothes. You can yell for me if you want me?”

Somehow, Steve’s scent is even worse in this enclosed space, more intense somehow. The allure of Steve’s scent is the blood-hot salty-fresh of his skin, but he smells clean and scrubbed, too, and that part of his scent is even stronger in this room. It’s his shampoo, and Bucky realises that once he showers he’s going to smell a little like Steve, in this small way. He will be able to smell Steve on himself after. He will be marked, in this minor, accidental coincidental way. He needs it, he needs to be owned, he needs a brand of Steve’s name on his flesh, he needs Steve burned into him so he never forgets again, he doesn’t ever want to forget again, and, God, it used to feel like that when they fucked back in Brooklyn sometimes, when they shared baths and beds and undershirts, when he’d smell some reminder remnant of Steve on himself at work or on the street and it’d make him smile at air, and it’d always be stronger when they’d just fucked -

“Is that ok?”

“Yeah. Ok. Sure.”

“Right. I’ll just be out here then.”

Bucky peels off his clothes and clambers into the shower. The tap mechanism only gives him slight pause, and then he fumbles through washing himself with the products Steve pointed out as best he can. He tries not to moan when he opens the cap of Steve’s shampoo and is hit with Steve’s incomplete scent, just enough to be a reminder of the blood and body he craves. He stands in the warm gently-flowing water rubbing Steve’s scent into his hair and skin, being washed clean of the smell of the river and the streets and the loneliness, and he knows that he cannot and will not just die now. His animalistic existence was pointless and painful for decades, but even just this feeling, being just this close to Steve, is enough to survive for.

Standing there, he realises that this is it. This is the end. The war is over. He is here, he is with Steve once again, and he is here to stay.

When he turns off the water, his body feels relaxed and his mind feels clearer, though the ache of hunger is strong in his stomach. He finds a towel and wraps it around his waist easily without thinking about it, although he cannot remember ever doing so before. When he leaves the bathroom, Steve rises from where he was sitting on the bed and hands him a neatly folded pile of clothes. Bucky puts them on the dresser next to him.

“I guessed the size but I think we’re about the same now. Uh, if anything’s not right just tell me and I’ll-”

Steve stops as Bucky takes off his towel to put on the undershorts that are on the top of the pile. When Bucky looks up to see what the matter is and sees the look on his face, he realises what he’s doing. Hydra made an animal. Hydra made a thoughtless beast living on honed instinct. Hydra peeled him back and bared him down into nothing, and for the past seventy years, nakedness has been an insignificant intermittent part of life. When he was with Steve, his naked body meant something else. The look on Steve’s face is mixed shock, sadness, longing and uncertainty, and that is not a reaction Bucky ever wanted to provoke in him. For the first time in a long time, he feels something like shame. He does not know what to do. He has no instincts to guide him in awkward social situations, and all memories of such are still fuzzy and a lifetime away. Besides which, he does not think there was ever a protocol for dealing with a gap in perspectives this huge.

“I, sorry, I, it’s fine-” Steve says, at the same time that Bucky says, “I’m sorry, it’s just-” and then they both pause.

Then Bucky says, carefully, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. That wasn’t deliberate. But,” he glances back to Steve’s face which he is inconveniently leaving unhelpfully blank of emotion which could serve as clues on how he should proceed, “I still want that, if you do.”

Bucky holds his breath while Steve seems to force himself to pause and gather his thoughts before he says, “Ok. Yes, I want that too. But we don’t have to rush. I know sometimes we used to, well, to play rough sometimes, we sometimes didn't really give each other the opportunity to say no, but we don't have to do things like that anymore. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’m not expecting anything. To be honest,” Steve’s shoulders square in a motion Bucky recognises means he’s steeling himself, “you being alive is more than anything I could ever have hoped for. I can’t ask for more. It’s - You - well, you’re everything.”

There were times, back before a lifetime of blood, back in Brooklyn, when Steve would say things, like shaky secret midnight confessions or, perhaps, prayers, things like “ _I love you,” “I need you,” “I do,_ ” and Bucky would wonder if it was possible that Steve loved him as deeply as he loved Steve, if maybe the well of devotion that went down into the very depths of him had a mirror somewhere in Steve. He always thought that probably, the way he felt about Steve - which he could acknowledge was, at it’s basest level, a tangled knot of clingy needy dog-like devotion, obsession and infatuation, all mixed in with the love, reinforced by hormones and time into something stronger than anything else in him - was part of the way he was, what he was, an animal driven by polluted instincts, attachments and biological imperatives. But when Steve says things like that, he can’t help but hope that maybe, just maybe, Steve really does feel exactly the same way that he does, and that it’s something good and pure. Perhaps the way he’s always cared more about Steve’s wellbeing than any other person’s existence isn’t wrong and selfish, but natural and right. Perhaps it’s ok that love, for Bucky, has always come before morality. Perhaps love is the strongest thing in Steve too. And, at the furthest reach of possibility, that means that his nature is not a dark and twisted thing but has, by extension, some of the same light that Steve’s does. That he is in some way worthy of Steve.

Fuck, he loves when Steve says things like that.

Bucky drops the towel still bunched in his hand onto the floor, takes a step to close the gap between them and kisses Steve’s lips for the first time since 1945. It’s blood-hot and wet straight away and he can taste. His heart soars and his head feels filled with light and sky. Steve’s lips are soft and his mouth is gentle in a way he always remembered and also didn’t remember until now. This, this is why he stayed alive. This is what he fought for. Steve is perfect. The kiss deepens, gets rougher, and then Bucky feels Steve run his tongue along his sensitive throbbing teeth and his hardening cock twitches and he moans. Steve was only just learning how to do this right back in the 40s, to tease him just enough to make him desperate without accidentally cutting himself on sharp inhuman teeth and forcing Bucky to end the kiss before he lost control. Steve always was a fast learner though. Fuck, God, yes, shit, it feels amazing, rough and dragging friction that’s still as smooth and soft as eiderdown, he wants that taste down his throat, he wants that tongue on his cock -

He’s growling, pulling away and going for Steve’s jugular before he can think. He manages to stop himself, just, to force himself to lick and kiss up Steve’s throat instead of bite. It’s so close, he needs it, _it’s so close_ -

But he knows that if he lets himself start, he may never stop. He refuses to be a slave to his instincts. He wants to stay with Steve, he wants to be worthy of him again the way he once was, and for that he needs to try to remember how he was. He has to become himself again, become the Bucky that Steve used to love. He can’t let himself be Hydra’s animal, and he cannot let himself maul Steve like he’s prey, a victim, a bloodstained wrenched open corpse on the ground-

Bucky jerks away from Steve, forces himself back into focus. Steve still looks dazed and blurry, and blinks a few times before saying, “Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” I’m what’s wrong, he doesn’t say. “It’s not your fault. But we can’t...I can’t feed from you the way we used to. I don’t really - I don’t have any real control over myself, anymore. They made me think less. Made me into instinct. I’d hurt you.”

“But you’re starving...” Steve says, glances at his lips, his eyes. “Ok. Ok, we’ll find another way. What about - what if someone took my blood, then you could drink it from a container? Would that be better?”

There is probably a reason he should say no to letting Steve hurt himself in even such a minor way without the anesthetic of Bucky’s spit to sooth it, the only thing that ever seemed to work on him back in the 1940s. However, Steve offered, and Bucky has been feeling his body slowly shutting down over the past few weeks, it feels worse even than some of what Hydra did to him, and he is ready for it to be over. If he drinks the blood from a container, the'll be no venom in Steve's system, so it'll be easier for him to stop Bucky if he looses control. He could drink somebody else's blood, he supposes, but he doesn't want to. Before the war, he drank whenever and whoever he could, but now he knows what it feels like when it’s Steve, what it’s like with Steve’s supercharged blood, and he will never be able to drink anyone else without wishing it was Steve. Steve is strong, he is probably the strongest and fastest healing human alive, and Bucky knows rationally this will not hurt him. The fact of the matter is, somewhere along the line, Steve became completely inseparable from Bucky’s existence, and then sex with Steve did, and then sex and Steve’s blood. He can remember there was a time when he didn’t live like this, just like he can remember a time before he was the Winter Soldier who’s killed dozens, just like he can remember his childhood before he had to drink blood at all, but he can no longer go back to being the person he was then than he can travel back through time. So, the only option he has now is to find the safest way he can to drink Steve’s blood. It’s selfish and wrong, probably, but it is motivated, by a twisted and thorny path, by love.

“Yes. Please.”

“Ok. We’ll do it right now.” Steve turns him, leads him out of the room with a hand on his shoulder. They enter a hugely spacious living room, full of white surfaces, wooden floors, windows and light. Steve sees his face in the full light of day for the first time. 

“You look awful.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Bucky’s eyes are caught on the view of a modified Manhattan out of the sky-high window, but he turns in time to catch the shit-eating grin that accompanies Steve’s comment, alight with triumphant glee and relief, and it’s worth the twisted beauty that’s grown up in his absence outside the window. It’s worth seeing one to see the other. Steve leads him to the couch, and he sits and stares out of the window. He can see the Chrysler building from here, and it still looks just as majestic and incredible as the day they finished it, but it’s surrounded by other buildings now, that are just as tall, if not as beautiful. He can hear Steve moving around in the kitchenette area. He doesn't look. He doesn't want to think. He knows what Steve is going to have to do.

Then Steve clears his throat. Bucky turns to see him holding a pint glass and a kitchen knife. The blade is sharp and shining steel, and the sight of it makes Bucky feel sick to his stomach. The idea of letting Steve come to even the slightest harm has always been unacceptable. But the hunger is roaring through him, and he needs this. He wants this. He wants Steve. He reminds himself that Steve offered to do this.

Steve asks, “Where shall I-”

“Not in front of me. I can’t...” can’t watch you hurt, can’t stop myself hurting you, not if I smell your blood. “We should do it so that I can’t smell you.”

“Ok,” Steve says, “Whatever you need, Buck.” He turns to leave.

"Steve, don't...don't take the whole pint. It's too much. Just let it heal."

"It's alright Buck. I'll only bleed a little, and then I'll heal up faster than you can blink. I'll be nothing. Just a scratch."

"Take a bandage with you, don't do anything deep enough to need stitches. Be careful, don't...don't hit an artery or..."

"I'm not an idiot Buck. I've got beat up enough times to know what not to do. You know that. There's a first aid kit in the bathroom. It's going to be fine, I swear." Steve smiles reassuringly, and Bucky nods. He turns back to the view, and listens to Steve's strong heartbeat move back through their bedroom, into the bathroom, and then it muffles as he shuts the door behind him.

Bucky sits and stares at the streets below clogged full of cars, the tall buildings and blue sky, the East River in the distance and the city that stretches into all directions, and tries not to think. He knows what Steve is doing. He knows that Steve is cutting into his skin, his soft milk-white gold freckled skin and he's wounding himself for Bucky, to feed Bucky's sick nature. He knows that this damage is a thousand times less than the damage he himself did to Steve with bullets and fists. He hates that he is not strong enough to say no to this. He tries to focus on what Steve said, about how it was nothing, and how willing he is to do this for Bucky. He tries not to, but he's straining for the scent of Steve's blood in the air. God, he misses it. 

He can hear Steve unlock the door. Steve comes into his sight and he's holding the knife and the pint glass awkwardly in the same hand, because the forearm of his other is wrapped in a bandage. His left, so that he could hold the knife and the bandage in his right hand. Smart, Bucky thinks distantly. Distantly because most of his attention is focused on the glass in Steve's other hand. It's more than half full, but not much more. Steve hasn't been dumb about this, Bucky's pleased to see. He's thinking about how Steve's blood, even such a tiny amount of it, has always been so potent to him, just like the drug Steve always liked to dirty-talk it up to be. Just this much, just the blood in that glass could keep the thirst that’s drowning him at bay. The urge to rip the glass out of Steve's hands and drink it all, the urge to pull the bandage off Steve’s skin and sink his teeth into it instead, the urge to bite into the rich artery on Steve’s neck and take his fill, all of those urges are strong.

But Bucky can hear Steve, faintly, as if from far away saying, “That’s it Buck. Nice and gentle. It doesn’t hurt a bit. There, there we go, you’ll be able to drink in just as second now. Just wait for another few moments, and you can drink it. I’m so sorry, I know you’ve been hungry a long time, but it’s just a little while longer now. You’re being so brave. You’re so strong.” The words and the tone form a reassuring background hum that Bucky can ground himself in, enough to force himself to freeze as Steve comes closer, sets the knife on the table and sits next to Bucky. 

He feels like the beast Hydra wore him down to, all exposed senses and instincts. Still, he remains still. His awareness of Steve's body overwhelms his own but his eyes are locked onto the glass of Steve's blood. He feels raw, but it doesn’t feel all that bad now that he knows that he was, always has been more than instinct, even when he couldn’t remember. Even now, he can force himself to say, "Is your arm ok? Does it hurt?" even though his voice sounds odd, almost as far away as Steve's does.

"I'm fine Bucky. Like I said, barely a scratch. I think the skin's already closing over."

That's probably a lie, Bucky knows. Steve would at least have to knick a vein to make himself bleed that much, that fast. He tries not to concentrate on how veins are always closer to the surface, they don’t pulse but flow gently, how the red looks welling up from blue veins, the colour change on contact with air, how the blood from Steve’s veins would flow slower onto his lips, but still taste just the same as blood from deeper beneath his skin’s surface, God, the taste -

“It’s ok Bucky, breathe. I'm fine, I swear. You're ok, just - come on, just drink it."

Bucky watches as his hands reach out to take the glass. Sniper’s hands. They never shake, no matter how hungry he gets, no matter what he feels. White skin, cold, around Steve's blood, and fuck, the glass is warm from his body heat. God, he wants. He wants, he wants, he wants he wants he wants-

Steve's fingers curl around his own. “There you go. You can drink now, it’s ok-”

Bucky tilts the glass to his mouth almost aches as the liquid pours onto his tongue and all his salivary glands go into overdrive at once. His senses seem to sharpen to a knife point. The blood, it’s lifeblood, it’s everything he’s been needing. It tastes of strength and security and home. The salty-iron liquid eases the burn in his mouth and throat and stomach, and then it's gone. He drank the whole glass.

He needs more.

He hears, “Steady now,” and turns into the source of the familiar voice, burying his nose into the neck and scenting the artery, running his teeth along the pulse point in one shining moment of anticipation before he is pushed away. He growls - his prey is not allowed to refuse him like this, not when he is so desperate - and he lunges again for the throat. But the man pushes him away again, and his muscles are strong. His eyes are beautiful, and piercing as he says firmly, “No, Bucky." 

Bucky. That's...that is the activation code - no, that's his name. Bucky. That's him. 

"You're ok. You're allright."

Steve. His victim is Steve.

He tries to pull away from Steve, to put distance between them, to make Steve safer. But Steve's arms are still around him, still encircling him. Now, he's holding Bucky close. He's saying, "It's fine, you didn't do anything wrong. You didn't hurt me, I'm ok. You stopped when I said stop - you're fine, we're fine. You stopped yourself, we're safe. I'm so proud of you."

“Steve,” he gasps.

“Yeah, I got you buddy,” comes the reply, and Steve is still holding him, so he leans back into Steve's arms, which, now he's breathing normally, are cradling him rather than restraining him. He lies back and lets himself just savour the touch. Because whatever else happened, he and Steve are together and safe, and Steve's arms are warm around him. The hunger still hurts, but it hurts less. 

After a few moments, “Do you feel better now?” cuts through the fog in Bucky’s head.

“Yeah,” he says. “Much better.” Steve smiles, looking down at Bucky where his head rests in Steve’s arms, and Bucky’s heart seems to swell and rise up in his throat at the sight. He wants to kiss that smile off Steve’s face, but he can’t. He thinks he left himself, for a while there, the way he did when he was the Soldier. He's not safe right now. He clears his throat, says, “Thank you. For everything. And especially for stopping me.”

“It’s ok, Bucky. We knew it might happen. And besides.” A grin breaks over Steve’s face like a wave. “It was nothing, I don’t think you were even trying. You did so well, Bucky. I know you were worried, but you didn’t need to be. You did so well, you were so strong. I know it was hard, but you listened to be when I told you to stop. I’m so proud of you, Buck.”

Bucky has to reach up to kiss him then, because the fireworks that Steve is setting off inside his chest are a fire hazard. His head is at war; he didn’t do well, he would have bitten Steve’s neck if he could have, it was only Steve’s strength that saved him. Bucky had floated away and only the beast was left, and that beast had no place anywhere near Steve -

But. But Steve had stopped him, with barely any effort and hardly a stern word, and he _didn’t_ bite Steve’s neck. Whatever animal he had become when the instincts overcame him, it still obeyed Steve. And Steve obviously had no reservations about controlling him when he couldn't control himself. It seemed like he could be trusted to look out for his own safety and not indulge Bucky when he went feral.

So...perhaps they can manage like this. Perhaps he can feed like this again, can drink Steve’s blood again. Perhaps he is not completely an animal without restraint. Perhaps he can trust Steve to manage him if he looses a little control. Perhaps, if Steve really does still want it, they could fuck again, if Bucky can drink enough to hush his instincts. Bucky sits up a little, although he’s still leaning across and mostly on Steve’s lap. He tries to take stock of himself, to gauge how much of his restraint he has regained, how much danger has been averted by him feeding from Steve indirectly. It’s done him good, he can tell that. The endorphins his blood stream has soaked him in have relaxed him in, the hunger is less fierce, and he can think a little clearer now. But although Steve’s blood is strong, that half a glass wasn't enough. 

“Was it enough to take the edge off?” Steve mirrors Bucky's own thoughts, sounding considering.

So Bucky says, “Yes,” and resigns himself to get through another few hours or days of silent hunger, because Steve is a kind and good man but he is also a fucking punk idiot, and he would bleed himself out if Bucky asked him to, so Bucky can't ask. 

But Steve’s next words are, “So do you think it will be safe for you to feed straight from me, now?” Steve asks, and Bucky could choke with shock and sudden pleasure. He wants to, fuck, he wants to, but “I...I don’t know whether that would be a good idea.”

Steve’s brows are furrowing, so he rushes to say, “You don’t know what I would do. You don’t know what I’ve done. What’s worse is, neither do I, exactly. Sweetheart,” because it always makes Steve go soft, “I know that you want to see the best in me, but a lot of that’s gone. I don't think you should trust me as much as you used to. I sure as hell don't.”

But Steve doesn't go soft. Steve sighs and turns to face Bucky, who's left to lean back into the cushions of the sofa instead of Steve’s shoulder and feels a little petulant because Steve’s shoulder was much more comfortable. Steve appears to be thinking, and Bucky huffs and presses their thighs back together before Steve says, “Bucky. I mean, it’s fine if that’s true. You know yourself and your body better than anyone else. It’s just, well. If you’re saying that because you think you need to protect me, I don’t think you need do. I meant what I said, you did well just now. You stopped when I said stop, you listened to me. I don’t know what you’re thinking, how it feels, I’m not gonna try and pretend I do, but I do know you always used to underestimate yourself, before. I thought we got past that, in the war, but I guess it’s been a long time for us since then. So it’s completely your choice, but I just wanted you to know, for what it’s worth,” Steve pauses, bites at the inside of his lip, and Bucky can’t stop his eyes from tracking it, “For what it’s worth, I know you. You’re still the same guy you always were. You’re still the same person who would have died before he hurt me, who fought to protect me. I still trust you, just the same-”

Bucky can’t stop the words from welling up, like pus from a wound, “Like a loaded gun, yeah? Like if I pointed a loaded gun at you, and had my finger on the trigger?”

“Yes, but-”

“But I already did that, that happened, and I shot. I pulled the trigger. I failed, and you can’t - you shouldn’t-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, shut up.”

Steve barely ever swears except when they’re having sex.

“Bucky, I am not putting up with this shit. Both of us have been through too much for this - for you to doubt yourself like this. You put a gun on me and you pulled the trigger, and despite the fact that we were indoors and you are an expert marksman and I was ten paces away, you shot me in the gut. You didn’t fail. Ok? You fought Hydra, and you won, I don’t care if it was in a battle or in your head or wherever, you fought and you won and you saved me. I trust you. With a gun, or with your teeth, or anything, and you should too.”

Bucky was familiar with this, once, with Steve’s rhetoric and the affects it had. He’s made bullies blush, mumble and apologise and roused troops into action with his speeches, Bucky’s seen it. Bucky has been familiar with persuasion, too, of Hydra’s more painful manner, persuasion of screaming and white-hot sickening metal-tasting pain. This is more powerful than that. This is Steve looking at him with his eyes turned to steel, his words to etchings in stone, and ordering him in the voice of his owner and commanding officer and best friend and lover to have faith in himself, because Steve already does.

“Ok,” Bucky says. “Alright then.”

Steve blinks, once. “Good.” He’s adorable, in this moment. He’s everything to Bucky, and he looks as if he hadn’t realised it until this moment. “Right. So...are you still hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to-”

“Yes.” Bucky leans forward, back into Steve’s space. He pauses for one moment to say, “I know you trust me enough for this to work, but that has to go both ways. You have to promise me. You have to stop me. You have to be prepared to restrain me, if I can’t.”

Steve looks at him and he looks incredulous and indignant, probably on Bucky's behalf, but also loving and accepting, and he just says, “I promise.”

So Bucky starts to scent along Steve’s neck. He presses his nose under Steve’s ear, closes his eyes against Steve’s nape, and breathes. He’s still thinking enough to say, “Don’t wait for it to hurt, ok? Don’t leave it until the last second, push me off as soon as you feel lightheaded,” but only just.

“You always make me feel lightheaded when you bite me,” Steve says, a little breathlessly, and Bucky pulls back to look at him until Steve says hurriedly, “But I know the difference. Of course I’ll stop you.”

“Ok then,” Bucky says. He goes back to Steve’s neck. The column of flesh and bone and blood that holds his pounding lifeblood, and it smells like food to Bucky, but that’s ok. He hasn’t wanted anything other than blood since he was thirteen, and no one’s but Steve’s since he was twenty-four, so it’s been...a long time. He’s ancient now. He’s going to drink Steve’s blood, and it’s ok, because Steve said he could, and Steve will stop him, and Steve trusts him. He’s hard already, and it would be embarrassing, except that as he licks across Steve’s pulse point, Steve moans.

“You want it?” His grin is pressing his teeth against the tissue-thin skin of Steve’s neck.

“Yes, God, Bucky, do it,” Steve’s saying, and he can feel the words thrumming against his lips. Bucky is starving and his body is desperate, but he is calm. He is not afraid, because Steve is not afraid. He will not hurt Steve. He knows that now.

“Bed,” he manages to say, and Steve groans, before Bucky pulls them both to standing. They kiss as they half walk half stumble backwards, hands fumbling on buttons and zips and kicking out of pants before until they both hit the mattress and go over. Bucky lands on top of Steve and yanks off his shirt, hearing fabric tear. Steve’s now wriggling gracelessly and adorably out of his own shirt beneath Bucky. Bucky laughs at him and receives a glare before he goes back to kissing down Steve’s neck, his exposed chest, his collarbones, his nipples, and Steve hisses as he lets his teeth graze them, but not break the skin. Bucky takes a moment to force the urge to bite back down, and forces his hands off Steve’s neck - he can’t remember when they got there. He thinks for a second, and then flips over, pulls Steve down on top of him, and puts his hands behind his back and grips his elbows with his opposite hands before he leans back onto them. Just in case. Steve makes use of the new position immediately to straddle Bucky, and start grinding their cocks together. Bucky can feel himself beginning to loose his mind, and he’s not scared. It always felt like this, after all. But he takes one more moment to say, “Steve?” and gets a hum in response, because Steve is currently busy skimming his hands down Bucky’s sides, feeling the minute ridges of the almost perfectly-healed scars he can’t remember getting. “Steve,” he says again, more loudly, and this time Steve bothers to look up and meet his eyes. “You promise?”

Steve says, “I promise.”

So Bucky lets himself relax. Leans back onto his trapped arms, and opens his legs. Steve comes back in between them just like he’d never left, and his thighs are strong and thick now and his groin is pressed up close to Bucky’s. Their cocks are rubbing up against each other and it’s enough to make Bucky moan, open mouthed. He almost misses when Steve whispers, “You’re still an idiot,” into his hair. Bucky turns to make a retort, but that puts his mouth right against Steve’s jugular. He mouths along it, and remembers the way tension builds like this, just as powerful at the moment when the has not-quite-fully depressed the trigger before the shot shouts out. He recognises the way the air has a charge that feels almost like static, pulling them to each other, coating them, outlining the negative space between their bodies in a way that only makes them ache to close it. He wraps his thighs around Steve hips and pulls him down hard, until their bodies are pressed tight together and Steve's heat is soaking into almost every inch of his body, from ankles to shoulders, and then he bites. 

It's like coming home. He can taste the arousal and the joy in Steve’s blood, he knows him so well. He hasn’t forgotten anything about this. They burned up his mind but this goes deeper, smell and taste and touch right down in the centre of him where their knives couldn’t reach. This is what he kept remembering, what they couldn’t make him forget. Steve’s rich warm healthy joyful red blood slipping out of his flesh and into Bucky’s mouth...it’s like the antithesis to everything he’s suffered. This taste and this sensation and this man, this is the best thing he knows. Steve’s blood is sustenance-love-companionship-home-longing-satisfaction-devotion-loyalty-lust-comfort-rest-tranquility-sex-need. He’s been without it, without any of it for so long, and now...

He can feel it building, and he remembers this from before; the tingling, tripping point moment before the fall, when his head is awash with rush and seems to exist only as a mere extension to his body, just part of a conduit for pleasure. Bucky can feel himself slipping under as Steve’s hand goes to his cock. Bucky’s own hands are trapped behind him, he put them there, but he doesn’t want to move, to break this connection, so all he can do is lie there, and feel as Steve strokes his rock-hard cock and thrusts against his thigh, as Steve’s groans vibrate across his buzzing teeth and straight into his skull and his bones, and, somehow, back into his cock and...

“God, Bucky, I missed you so much. I love you,” Steve says, in a low, quiet voice resonating with pleasure, drugged with the venom, and Bucky whines and presses up into him. Steve’s skin is hot and slick against Bucky’s and he can feel the beginning of Steve’s stubble rough against his lips. Steve is hot and heavy and hard against him and his hand’s on Bucky’s dick, and he’s missed this so much, this visceral, uncompromising assertion of Steve’s closeness. Steve's warmth is soaking through his skin into his bones. This close, with this much of Steve’s blood in his system, he can hear Steve’s panting echoing through the cathedral of his chest, he can feel the pulse of Steve’s heart in his cock where he’s thrusting onto Bucky’s thigh. He hadn't even realised how much of his never-ending hunger has been for this until it's being satisfied - not for blood, but for the act of drinking from Steve. Steve, who was always kind to every outcast, Steve, who retaught Bucky his humanity whenever he got close to loosing it, Steve, who saved him, who dragged him out of hell, who let Bucky live off his blood, who lets Bucky fuck him, who isn't scared of him, Steve who is his, all his. Steve's hand stroking his cock just how he needs it, Steve's blood in his mouth, in his throat, Steve's blood filling him up inside and his skin pressed against Bucky's, filling him with hot and love until there is no cold or anger left in him. Steve Steve Steve Steve _Steve,_ whose voice is gravelly and intoxicated and sex-rough when he says, “Babydoll. Just let go. Come on, Bucky, Buck, I love you, just let go.”

So he does. Steve's presence lulls him down into the state where there is no thought. He lets all of the sensation drown him. The friction of Steve's touch washes over him in waves, and he is powerless. He is safe, and loved, and Steve's hand is fucking his body and his mind. Steve is fucking the thought right out of him. If Steve wants him to come, he will. If Steve wants to draw it out, Bucky will lie here and take it until Steve decides to release him. It was about Steve's safety, but now it's about Steve's pleasure. He always did like it when he got Bucky overwhelmed. Right now, that's exactly what he's got. Bucky's hips are humping up to Steve's hand without instruction, trying to chase the touch, even though he knows that Steve won't stop now. He's whimpering into Steve's throat, tonguing and licking as much as he can to keep the wound open, and to keep the venom in Steve's bloodstream, and he's swallowing almost convulsively. Steve's other hand was stroking down his ribs, but now he's moving lower, rocking so that most of his weight is resting on Bucky so that his other hand can move lower. Bucky gets stuck for a moment on how good it feels to be pinned down by Steve's solid and undeniable body weight before he realises that Steve's finger is now pressed up against Bucky's asshole. If his mouth were free, he'd say Steve's name, but as it is all that comes out is a strangled moan. Steve's finger presses and massages and teases maddeningly until Bucky could nearly cry with need, and then he presses in and finds Bucky's prostrate within seconds. There's the slightest burn that blurs into pleasure as bright as a searchlight behind Bucky's eyes, and he comes into the rough stroking of Steve’s hand and the flood of his blood and the pressure of him inside and the warmth of his arms. He can feel himself shaking, and he hears Steve gasp as white stripes up both of them, and hears him say, “There. Just like that, perfect. Let go, just like that, fuck, just look at you.” 

Finally, the sensation as strong as an ocean moving inside him abates, and Bucky takes his teeth out of Steve’s neck and gasps, shuddering still. He’s still sensitive, but Steve’s pulls out his finger gently and his hand gentles Bucky though the aftershocks, and Steve doesn’t stop thrusting his slick cock against his thigh. Steve’s other hand, so recently inside him, comes up to stroke Bucky's hair away from his face, the hair that smells of Steve and marks Bucky as his, traces his fingers over Bucky’s cheekbone. Then Steve sends a shudder in the seismic range of an earthquake through him when he feels Steve’s lips and then his teeth pressing into the tender lobe of his ear - it’s something Steve likes to do sometimes, playfully returning Bucky’s bites on unexpected areas at unexpected times, because he’s a shit and he thinks he’s hilarious, and if, this time, Bucky huffs out breathless laughter in reply it’s only because he’s missed Steve very much for a very long time. Bucky rolls, pulls his arms out from under him, and pushes Steve down, so that Bucky's on top of him. He crawls down Steve's body, and without ceremony swallows Steve's cock. He can't take much of it in, he's been out of practice for too long, but he strokes what he can't take in and sucks and licks all that he can. He keeps his teeth out of the way and he's so full and sated that it's easy. With the amount of his venom in Steve's system, it takes him about half a minute until he comes down Bucky's throat. Bucky swallows and the satisfaction of it makes him grin, as much has he can round Steve's cock. His eyes were closed but Steve must have been looking at him, because he laughs breathlessly, and pulls Bucky up so their faces are level, and kisses him. Bucky rolls them both so that Steve's on top again and and drags Steve down, closer, right down on top of him, until all of Steve’s torso is pressed up against all of his own once more. He doesn’t move after that, and neither does Steve, and he can feel himself drifting into sleep. He rouses himself enough for a moment to get out, “Love you,” and hear Steve’s hum, and then sleep overwhelms him.

 

 

 

He is close to waking, and he feels Steve’s heat has left him, but he can hear Steve moving around close by in the bedroom and bathroom, so he doesn’t bother to move or get up. He hears cupboards opening, the tap running, and then shutting off. And then there’s warm water dripping onto his stomach, and he wakes the rest of the way up to crane his neck to see Steve washing the dried come off his stomach with a wet towel. He smiles, and lets his head fall back on the pillow. He knows that Steve didn’t much like Bucky, or anyone actually, even appearing to look after him and hated to have things done for him that he could do for himself, but Bucky, from the receiving end, is experiencing no such qualms whatsoever.

“Lazy,” Steve says, and it’s affectionate. He’s always loved how Bucky gets pliant when he gets enough of Steve’s blood to fill him so he won’t be hungry for a week. He hums in reply and clasps his hands behind his neck. Steve smiles, and when he’s finished washing Bucky’s torso clean, or clean enough, he runs his hand across Bucky’s damp skin, and Bucky doesn’t even bother to stop himself arching up into the touch.

Steve says, “I’m gonna go get some food.”

“Well, none for me. I’ve already eaten.”

“Did I offer?” Bucky laughs, and then rolls over, back into the warmth Steve’s body’s left in the bed. He’s very acutely aware of how the whole thing smells like Steve - his shampoo, his sweat and his come - and Bucky wallows in it. He hears Steve puttering about in the kitchen, opening the fridge and frying something, switching on the microwave, and the unappetising smell of food wafts into the bedroom. And then he hears, quite distinctly, when an unknown voice says, “Mr Rogers, when it is convenient to you, Mr Stark would like a word." 

Bucky freezes. No one came into or out of the apartment. He cannot hear anyone other than Steve breathing, or any other heartbeat. He is with Steve in the kitchen before he has time to think any more, and this time, the rush of speed doesn't make him dizzy.

Steve sees him sooner than anyone else would be able to, says, “Buck - hey, don’t worry, it’s just Jarvis.” Steve’s hands are up, palms facing him, at Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky relaxes at Steve’s tone, and at the realisation that the voice was remote.

“Who is Jarvis?”

“Um. Well.” Steve seems to gather his thoughts, and then takes a deep breath before he says, “This may be a little hard to believe, but, basically, as I’ve had it explained to me, Tony made a person out of a computer. He, um...he figured out how to program a personality into a machine. And the guy’s pretty nice, his name is Jarvis and he uh, ‘lives’ in the tower. That is to say, he’s installed all over the tower. He sort of acts like a butler, but I think he’s also ridiculously smart.”

Bucky believes him. It's the twenty-first century - anything is possible. The only thing he wants to know is, “Is he always listening?”

“No, Jarvis is pretty good about that sort of thing. Tony said he only activates listening protocols when directly addressed. Or unless there’s a threat to security.”

Bucky swallows. “A vampire probably counts as a threat to security, doesn’t it.”

“Oh shit,” says Steve.

“And if he finds out about me, will he tell Tony?”

Steve is silent, and then goes pale as the same smooth male British voice as before says, “Yes, Mr Barnes. However, due to my recommendations and Mr Starks’ own threat evaluation, he has decided to take no action against you at this time. Rather, since my report of your unusual diet, he has spent the last six hours analysing the samples taken from you during your recovery, in an attempt to understand how your biology differs from that of a humans’.”

Someone knows his secret. Not Steve - a scientist. Like the men who found him before. But Steve’s friend. A good person? Who has chosen not to take action, after finding a monster in their midst. Why not? “You’re not...he’s not going to - to lock me up?”

“No, Mr Barnes.”

“Even though he knows I’m...not human.”

“Mr Stark decided that your species would not be reason for discrimination. Currently, the number of altered or non-humans in residence on the top two levels of this tower outranks the number of non-altered.”

“What.”

“Yourself, Mr Rogers, Mr Odinson and Mr Banner, in comparison to Mr Stark, Ms Romanov and Mr Barton.”

Bucky turns to Steve. Steve clears his throat, “Well, the serum. And other people tried to replicate it, after the war. The team is..., think Howling Commandos 2.0.”

The smooth voice cuts in again, “This tower is very well reinforced, can be put into lockdown at the first hint of a security threat by either myself, Mr Stark or Ms Potts, amongst a multitude of other easily implementable precautions. Therefore, unless your behavioural patterns change drastically, Mr Stark decided that in light of your high level of reasoning, compassion and self-restraint obvious even whilst engaged with Mr Rogers,” and there is no inflection on the word but Steve makes a sound like he’s choking on a fur ball, anyway, “Mr Stark will engage in conversation with both you and the other residents of the tower before attempting to put any restraints on your freedom, Mr Barnes.”

“Right.” Bucky’s head is still reeling. “And this conversation will be...?”

“Most of the team are already assembled in the penthouse common room. I was requested to inform Mr Stark when you awoke. However, they are not expecting your presence for the duration of Mr Rogers’ meal.”

Bucky pauses. This is not the world he knows. This is not the same city he grew up in. This is the twenty-first century, he is talking to a sentient computer and apparently being inhuman is not unheard of now. Apparently, Steve has found people who can forgive a monstrosity like his. What Jarvis seems to be saying is ridiculous, but there is a chance that this is not too good to be true, that this is not a trick, that a home here could be a reality. Bucky turns to Steve, “You sure they’re not going to...to try and take me away from you, are they?”

“No! No, of course not. Bucky, these are our friends, we can trust them - like the Howlers, remember? And you know that if anyone ever did try to separate us, we wouldn’t let them.”

“Yeah, of course.” But it was nice to hear it from Steve, no-nonsense like that. “But with everything? Not just what the Howlers guessed, but the truth?”

“Yes! I swear, it’s going to be fine. It’s…times have changed now, and…two men together is allowed. That at least will be fine.” Bucky raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth, but Steve speaks over him, “And anyway, like Jarvis said, they’re not…most of them have secrets too. Natasha already knows, and she said it doesn’t matter, and it sounds like Tony’s more interested in breaking down the science than anything else. Thor probably won’t care at all, and Bruce, well, he won’t hold it against you. He’ll probably just be interested in the biology aspect too. Clint’s not going to blame you for something that’s not your fault. All these guys’ll want is to make sure that you’re safe to be around, and when they find out you are-”

“And if they decide I’m not?”

“Then we’ll convince them otherwise. And if we can’t, which I highly doubt, well. I’ll be with you, whatever happens.” That faith in him again, that trust. Fuck, he really fucking loves when Steve says things like that.

“Ok.” Bucky considers. “If they have my file, and my blood, they already know everything, don’t they?”

“Yeah, probably. I expect Natasha will have shared the file Hydra kept on you, now keeping the secret is a moot point.”

“What’s in that, exactly?” Steve’s expression clouds, darkens. “They have information on all the tests they ran on you. All the invasive procedures. I…I don’t know how much you remember…?”

“No, you know, that was a stupid question. I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter. It happened. It’s over now.” 

Steve still looks torn. “Well, ok. Do you really not remember any of it?”

He could say, I remember all of it, just none of the details.

He could say, I remember being what was left, afterwards.

He could say, I remember the pain, the fear, and that is enough.

He says, “No. And I don’t want to.”

“Ok. Then, what the folder has in it is a very thorough examination of your biology, as well as a description of all the things they did to you.” Steve’s voice sounds pained. Bucky imagines Steve reading that file, alone, not knowing for sure whether there was any of Bucky left inside after that. Not knowing whether or not he was reading his lover’s death sentence. Why would Steve put himself through that, when he didn’t have to?

But then, of course he did. Steve would read it because he would feel personally responsible for every needle and knife that ever pierced Bucky’s skin. The ridiculous idiot. Bucky says, carefully, “Well, I don’t remember that. I know that it happened, but I’m here now. I don’t want to think about it anymore. You don’t have to either.”

“No, yeah. Ok,” says Steve, unconvincingly. “Well, anyway, now they know all that I don’t think you have anything to worry about. They’re all reasonable people. They’re going to understand that at every point, you’ve been the victim and not the aggressor. None of them will blame you.”

“Hm,” Bucky says. “And you’re sure no on will care that we fuck?”

This time, Steve cracks a smile, and it’s believable. “Oh, they’ll care. They think I’m a virgin. They kept trying to set me up on dates. They’ll be ecstatic.”

“A virgin. You. The dirtiest mouth I’ve ever heard speak.”

“I know. But then, to be fair, I turned down everyone they told me I should go with.”

Bucky feels a sharp sweet pain at that. Because it’s been two years, for him, and he believed Bucky dead, and he still didn’t want anyone else. The possessiveness would have eaten him alive if Steve’d done otherwise, but as it is, something else is doing the same, thinking of Steve alone and stubbornly lonely like that. Steve reads whatever it is his face is showing, and says, “I know. I couldn’t have done anything else. I’m not sorry that I didn’t, either. I don’t know what I would have done, if…”

Bucky moves in close and hugs him, warm from Steve’s blood and as firmly present as he can be. When he moves back, Steve’s face is a twisted mess, and he doesn’t know what to say to fix it, so he says, “So we have nothing to worry about, now, then?”

“No.”

“Ok,” Bucky says, and Steve must firmly believe that he is right, because he doesn’t even bother to argue with the tone of uncertainty in Bucky’s voice, merely smiles. If Steve is sure, Bucky can do his best to be the same. Steve turns away, scrubs his hands over his face, and then dishes up the food that lain forgotten on the stove. It’s toast, bacon and eggs. Bucky supposes that, if pushed, he might pick at the bacon, but the toast looks like it tastes of bland cardboard and the eggs smell disgusting and look like fried mucus. Because it always used to make Steve groan and laugh when he was younger, Bucky tells him his opinion of his food, and Steve’s laugh is surprised and delighted.

“Oh jeez, thanks for that. I really needed that. God, you’re delightful you are.”

Bucky smiles at him, smirks, actually, and Steve grins and kisses him.

Steve is sure about this. Steve is certain that whatever is about to happen, it’s going to be ok. Sometimes, that’s enough for Bucky to believe it too. He always wants to believe that Steve is right, at least about the big things, the important things. He always used to. But, well. After everything, after all this time, he can’t help but doubt Steve’s optimism sometimes. And, he feels cruel even thinking it, but Steve has always been too generous in his judgements about people. Bucky’s seen the worst, Steve sees the best, and sometimes the fact that Steve sees the best in people and expects it from them means that they find the will to live up to his expectations, but oftentimes it doesn’t. Of course, Steve’s not naive, not anymore anyway, and his judgement is almost always sound. But this is the biggest secret they’ve ever spilled, more even than what the Howlers knew back in 1945, all of the information Hydra prised from under his skin, and Bucky hasn’t even met most of Steve’s new friends. And almost isn’t always.

When they’re dressed and showered, Bucky and Steve take the elevator up to the communal living room, where Jarvis has, politely, informed them that Tony, Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton and Bruce Banner are waiting for them. Thor is apparently off-planet. Bucky intends to ask later. On the elevator ride, Bucky concentrates on the multitude, the host, the pantheon of Steves surrounding him on all sides in the windowed walls, instead of the fact that he is trapped in a tiny metal cell hurtling through air to meet a group of people who know all his sick secrets and are possibly powerful enough to kill him. As the numbers flick up to their floor, Bucky’s not hyperventilating or panicking, but that’s only because that’s never helped him win a fight before. He ignores the fact that he’s trusting the future that he’s only just got back to the goodwill of people he’s never met. Comforts himself with the knowledge that if he has to run or fight or kill or hide, he will, and Steve will do it with him, and as long as he has Steve it will be ok. He’s a demon, he’s a monster, and he’s killed so, so many people, but he has been through too much to be selfless now, and he will never loose Steve again.

When the doors slide open, it’s a pretty casual scene in the living room. There are as many windows as there were on their own personal floor, and the view is possibly even more stunning. The decor is similar, white and chrome and tasteful wood accents, but this room looks more lived in. There are blankets and throw pillows scattered around, piles of books on a table by the sofa. There are also the expected four people in the room, and they are all staring at Bucky. Bucky knows Tony Stark, sitting on a stool at a kitchenette to the right of the room, sipping what looks like coffee, and he knows that Natalia Romanova is the strikingly beautiful woman sitting in an ostensibly relaxed pose with her legs crossed and a book on her lap on the sofa, whose clothes are too loose for Bucky to see how many weapons she’s carrying. He’s not sure which of the two remaining men are which until Steve introduces the tired looking man standing and cleaning his classes at the window with, “Bucky, this is Bruce Banner,” and the blond man next to Natalia on the sofa draped in a blanket, who also seems to be drinking coffee, with “and this is Clint Barton. You know Tony, and Natasha-”

“We’ve met,” she says, with a rye smile.

Bucky says, “Wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

“Water under the bridge,” she says, and her smile looks sincere but her eyes are still watchful.

“So,” says Tony Stark, “We all know each other’s names, how nice, how civilised. Now, I suggest we cut to the chase and address the very obvious elephant in the room here: Bucky, Jarvis tells me you’re a vampire.”

None of the others in the room react, apart from Banner’s heavy sigh and eye-roll, which Bucky thinks are probably directed at Tony. Bucky can feel Steve slightly bristling at his side, but he can’t think of any way to answer other than, “Yes.”

“Right. So, Bucky, would you say that you pose a serious threat to national security?”

“Uh..no?”

"Got any plans to go on a murder rampage and kill a ton of people?"

"No one who's not Hydra."

“Good answer. Great. Guys, we done?” There nods or noises of assent from all around the room.

“Wait, is that it? Are you serious?” Bucky asks, incredulous.

“Yep. Jarvis told me about how you very clearly negotiated with Steve for his blood, and expressed a desire not to let yourself loose control of your instincts.” By the window, Bruce Banner puts his glasses back on. “You apparently managed to avoid seriously hurting him even as your teeth were in his neck, which, I have to say, is very interesting biologically. Natasha has assured us, after looking through your file, that there is no way you could have undergone what they put you through and not become a killer, but that by no means dictates the change is permanent.” Natalia’s smile becomes a little sharper, and Clint Barton resettles himself next to her so that his crossed leg is pressed against hers. “She also said your file indicates that you don’t have to kill people to drink from them, and that donated blood is good enough. And has Steve reassured me, multiple times and very insistently, that you’re really truly an all-round nice guy who’s just been misunderstood.”

Steve seems to be in stunned silence at Bucky’s left shoulder, so he just says, “Ok. Sounds about right.”

“Fantastic. So, would you like any coffee?”

“No, thank you,” Bucky says, at the same time Clint Barton says, “I’ll take a refill.”

Bucky looks to Steve to see if he thinks this is odd behaviour, but Steve’s now smiling smugly as if he knew this would happen all along. And it’s true that Steve always does expect the best from people, but that’s never been Bucky’s habit, and he can’t believe that this is how anyone could react to the discovery of a monster like him in their midst.

“But you really don’t...You really don’t care that I’m not human. That I feed on people to survive. How can that mean nothing to you?”

“Pal, no offence, but I’ve fought bigger than you and survived. And I have an impenetrable metal suit that I can summon in my sleep, so.” Tony smiles with a look in his eyes that Bucky can’t interpret, and then turns and walks back to the kitchen to fiddle with what Bucky presumes is a coffee machine. He’s still staring after him when Natasha clears her throat. “You’ve already chosen not to kill me once, and that was when you were under Hydra’s control. So I’m willing to take my chances now.”

Natasha looks at Clint, who says, “If I started worrying about hanging out with dangerous people now, I’d only give myself a complex.”

Bruce says, “I don’t think that you have the physical capability to kill me.” Which is worrying enough on it’s own, except for how he says it with a pained and mildly apologetic smile.

Steve, at Bucky’s side, now has a grin on his face that has moved past smug and into triumphant. He sees Bucky looking and says, “Sorry Buck, I guess you’re just not as scary as you thought you were after all.” Bucky could punch him, or kiss him, but they are in public so he does neither. Whilst Bucky wasn’t really expecting a mob and pitchfork reaction from Steve’s new friends, it’s true that he certainly wasn’t expecting easy acceptance and no questions asked. He was aware that the twenty-first century was more liberal than the decades he’d grown up in, but he hadn’t realised that included afflictions like his. He’s glad about it, of course he is, although all of these people must be either insane or used to some incredibly weird situations. Steve always did seem to gravitate to the oddest people in any given circumstance. Steve, who is still visibly gloating over how much of a non-event sharing Bucky’s secret has been, leads Bucky over to the sofa opposite Natasha and Clint’s.

"So, Steve," says Natasha, as they sit down, fixing Steve with a mock-firm look ruined by hints of a mischievous grin, "Why didn't you just tell me I was barking up the wrong tree, trying to set you up with all those girls.”

So, apparently, no one cares that he and Steve are sodomites. This is New York city, it's the twenty-first century, these are Steve's new friends, and this is going to be ok. Steve was right, this is going to be ok. Then Steve says, "You were barking up the wrong tree trying to set me up with anyone who isn't Bucky,” and now he believes it. The knowledge that Steve will never take a lover other than him twists in Bucky's gut like a bittersweet knife again, and although he feels guilty, he also feels very smug, and can’t help but let a small smile settle on his face.

Natasha sniffs, says, "You could have just told me, you know.” Steve only shrugs.

Clint, who, now that Bucky is closer, looks like a rumpled owl woken up outside of it's preferred nocturnal sleep cycle, says, in a conversational tone, "So. Vampire, huh?”

"Yes?" Bucky has got absolutely no idea where this conversation is going. 

"So, like, how are you up in the day time?" Clint asks almost as if Bucky will reveal a secret Clint can share to achieve such alertness.

"Uh, well, I'm pretty sure all those myths are bullshit. The only thing that's accurate is that I need to drink blood." Bucky's aware that his tone up until this point has been on a gradient between incredulous and monotone, and if these are Steve's new friends, he really does want them to like him, so he adds, "And, also, I turn into a bat and fly around at night.”

Clint laughs, surprised, Steve chuckles, and even Natasha cracks a grin.

"So, garlic, sign of the cross, running water-”

"Do you sparkle?" Tony interrupts from the kitchen.

"Nope, none of it.”

“Huh,” says Clint.

"You sound disappointed," Natasha notes, and there's humour in her voice.

"Well, just, you know. It would be really cool if he was an actual vampire. I mean, you guys are super powered and cool and all, but it doesn’t really count. You’re not properly magic or anything.”

“Thor is a god,” Natasha remarks mildly. Bucky makes a mental note to ask Steve who exactly this Thor person is.

“But he’s not, is he, he’s an alien. It’s not the same. I just wanted something to be actually magic. Just once, you know?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” says Bucky.

Clint grins and says, “Apology accepted.”

“See, what did I say,” Tony says, coming over to Clint’s couch and filling up his coffee over his shoulder. “I said you two would get on great, didn’t I?”

Bruce, ignoring Tony, asks, “So, if none of the myths apply, how much do you know about what you are?”

“I don’t know anything.”

"So whoever bit you didn’t tell you anything?" asks Clint.

"I’ve never been bitten. I just started needing blood, when I was a teenager.”

Bruce puts his glasses back on, comes away from the windows, closer to the couches. He looks intrigued. "So, there was a time when you didn't need to drink blood? And this isn’t something that’s happened to you, it’s how you were born. That's interesting - so it could be genetic, then?”

"Maybe. I don't know. We were orphans," Bucky reminds him, slightly tersely. Does not mention his demon of a father. 

“Have you never met anyone else like you?”

“No.” 

He’s aware he’s being rude, now, but he doesn't need to dwell on this, on the hows and whys. He can’t change it. And he doesn’t want anyone to try to figure out how he works, to cut him open and pick apart the pieces. He can’t remember the specifics, but he thinks that Hydra were very curious about his biology, at first.

Bruce has obviously picked up on his discomfort. "Well, whatever the cause, you seem to be perfectly healthy. It might be worth running some tests though, just in case there's something you're deficient in - because, I mean, there's no of knowing what an ideal diet is supposed to look like for you. And we could look at synthesising an alternative food source for you, if you wanted.”  

"I..." It hadn't occurred to him, because Tony's offer had seemed so focused on making sure that Hydra no longer controlled him, but there's no way that Bruce's offer isn't directly offering help, for no other purpose than good will. "Thank you." He’s surprised to hear that voice sounds slightly choked. He supposes it's been a long time since a stranger offered him kindness for the sake of it. Sometimes, he thinks, he forgets that Steve is not the only good man in the world.

“Oh, I already did that. Sorry, you seemed busy, so I just got on with it.” Tony says to Bruce. He’s dispensed with the coffee machine jug now, and vaults over the back of the sofa to squash in next to Clint as he speaks. “His blood work looks completely normal in most ways, but there’s also some added components which I have no idea what the fuck they are. I looked through the file, but Hydra had no clue what was going on with his biology either. They just gave him blood and vitamin supplements and hoped for the best. But, you know, if you feel fine on it, I’m pretty sure that just blood’s enough, plus occasional water.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bucky had successfully fed himself as a vampire for thirteen years after all.

“Right, fine, good, that’s sorted then. I guess the only thing to ask is whether you want us to organise to have some donated blood diverted this way, or if you’d rather keep feeding off your boyfriend instead.”

Bucky doesn’t know what it is, but he must show a reaction when he realises that Tony means Steve.

Tony just grins like an asshole and says, “I mean, that’s what you guys are, right?”

Bucky notices Bruce rolling his eyes at Tony’s lack of tact whilst sipping his tea. Natasha is stealing some of Clint's coffee and Clint still looks half asleep. No one thinks that this isn't normal. Next to him, Steve is saying nothing, but his thigh presses into Bucky's. He knows that whatever he says next, Steve will back it up. He answers, “Yes. I just hadn’t heard that word before. But yeah, I suppose that’s what we are. And yes, although I’ll mostly feed from Steve, some donated blood would be good.”

“Well then,” says Tony, “Sorted.”

“But how will you be able to get blood from a hospital?”

“Well, seeing as I do have a legit medical centre here on site, for the purpose of maintaining this rag-tag little team of killers, they’ll probably just assume it’s for official Avengers business.”

“Avengers?” Bucky had assumed that this team would have some kind of stupid name, as these are Steve’s friends, and had assumed they’d have some kind of defensive role to play, but he’s aware that he’s missing the specifics. “Care to elaborate on that?”

“Well, I like to think of us as-” Tony starts, but Natasha cuts him off. “We were a specialised task force, originally created to fight off an alien invasion, which now deals with whatever situations arise that the regular military, police and special ops can’t deal with.”

“Are there a lot of those, then, nowadays?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Who’s your handler?”

“We don’t have one,” Steve says. “Not anymore, anyway. We did answer to SHIELD, but now Tony funds us and provides our equipment. We can make our own decisions.”

“And you’re the leader?” Bucky asks, knowing the answer.

“Yes,” Steve says, just as Tony says, “Well, we let him think he is.”

“Ok,” says Bucky. “So, when can I start?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. And sorry for the abrupt ending! I know it was supposed to be the last chapter, but it was taking too long and getting too long for me to wrap up the loose threads as best as I can, so there’s an epilogue on it’s way. Thank you all so much for your patience, kudos and kind words!


	4. Chapter 4

The afternoon after Bucky comes home to Steve, Steve takes Bucky to Central Park through the streets of New York on the back of his shiny modern motorcycle which he is obviously very smug about owning. When they get there, the joy of showing Bucky how all their childhood haunts have changed is so catching that Bucky doesn't have the heart to tell him how he's been following Steve around the park on his morning jog. Steve gets a hotdog from a vendor and they walk in the sunshine. Bucky gets the sense that Steve’s expecting him to be uncomfortable around so many people, but pretty soon he stops glancing at Bucky from the corner of his eye, so Bucky doesn’t bother to explain to him that he’s not uncomfortable because he knows that he could likely kill anyone in their immediate vicinity easily, even without the guns that have been confiscated from him, and the trees are providing enough cover that a sniper wouldn’t be able to get a clear shot. 

They don’t talk much for a few hours, mostly just walking and exchanging slightly dopy smiles, and then later they find a secluded area by the lake and Steve touches Bucky’s cheek like he’s a miracle, and then it’s like they can’t stop. Steve talks about how art has changed, and food, and clothes, and social standards. He talks about how there are so many more people in the world now, and so much more knowledge, and how much bigger it all seems. He talks around waking up alone without Bucky, avoids talking about what it was like to think that everyone you loved was gone. 

Bucky doesn’t talk as much. He doesn’t say that he’d been forced to live like an animal. He does say he hated every second he can remember and he can’t remember all of it, but that he’d never completely forgotten Steve. 

Steve says, “I wish I could have been there for you. I wish I could have got you out.” 

"That would have been something to see, remotely staging a rescue mission from underneath the arctic whilst unconscious."

Steve laughs, a bright surprised shining sound that makes Bucky smile too, makes a glow well up inside his chest like he did something amazing.

Steve's smile gets a little dimmer as he says, "Yeah, well. I should have thought of something. I shouldn't have just given up."

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that, so he leans a little into Steve where their shoulders are touching, and Steve takes his weight. 

Steve says, “But _you_ did it. You escaped. And I’ll never let them take you back.” He smiles even though he looks like he wants to cry, and Bucky doesn’t want him to look like that any more, and that is most of why he stops talking completely. He listens to Steve talk instead, watches the sadness and pain and joy pass over his face like the weather, and tries to let the certainty that this is permanent settle into himself. That he can have this. 

Eventually, lights start going on along the footpaths, and they need to start heading back to Stark tower. In the warm orange night lights of the park, Steve takes Bucky’s hand in public, and he starts for a moment before squeezing, hard. They walk hand in hand and it is not familiar, not muscle memory. This is not something they could ever have had before. This is not part of their shared past, but it is part of their shared future, and they have always fallen into step beside each other anyway, so it comes naturally enough. On Steve’s bike, Bucky wraps his arms around Steve’s waist, hard, and his thighs are straddling Steve’s hips. The bike slowly warms, vibrating beneath them as they cruise slowly on the crowded streets, and by the time they get back to the tower, both of them are hard. 

That night, the light from the city outside and the tasteful dimmed bedside lamps blends golden, and so does Steve’s hair, and his skin. In their apartment, in their hometown. Bucky steals kisses while Steve cooks pasta at the stove, settles his arms around Steve's waist and refuses to let go.

"Get _off_ asshole, you're gonna get burned."

"Nope."

"Look, this sauce says it's got garlic in it. Begone demon." 

"Nah."

Then Bucky sits next to Steve on the couch and kisses his neck and shoulders while he's trying to eat.

"Hey, lay off, I'm gonna spill it on you in a minute."

"Don't care, you can lick it right off again."

"You are _awful_." 

"Would you say I'm...a pain in your neck?"

"Bite me."

"Gladly."

As soon as Steve's bowl's in the sink, Bucky grabs a sports drink, because he takes preparedness as seriously as any boy scout, pulls Steve into the bedroom and pulls off his clothes. He doesn't really care how they fuck as long as he can feel close to Steve again, the wondrous electric blur of sex and blood that he's missed for so long. Steve's squirming and writhing but staying underneath him, and when Bucky grabs the lube Steve takes it from him and hurriedly starts to finger himself open, so apparently Steve's the one getting fucked. Bucky takes the lube back, and knocks Steve's hands out of the way in favour of scooting down the bed and doing the honours himself. In this as in everything Steve doesn't take his own comfort into account nearly as much as Bucky thinks he should. So Bucky takes over, puts his fingers inside Steve and his other hand on his dick, and gets Steve panting and begging, "Please, yes, come on, please," pretty fast. Steve's got his head thrown back, eyes closed and hands on Bucky's long loose hair, so he doesn't see when Bucky swallows down his cock, but jerks with the sensation, cries out, and then again when Bucky pushes another finger into him. Steve's dick feels hot and good and heavy on his tongue. He's not blood-sated like he was the last time they did this, but he's overwhelmed at how easy it is despite that not to bite down. The urge is there, like it was always there, but Steve's hand is on the back of his neck and his hip is underneath Bucky's hand and somehow in the midst of lust and heat he's grounded. He maybe gets a little carried away with the sucking, the licking, maybe scrapes his teeth just a little bit, just to ease the buzzing in them, or tease it maybe, but he doesn't hear Steve complaining. All he hears out of Steve is, "Fuck, Bucky, yes, you're so fucking good, you're so good, yes," so that's ok.

"You're real easy, you know that stud?" Bucky takes the time between downward strokes to tell Steve.

"Sure, ok, whatever you say. Just there, come on, just there." Bucky pretends not to know what he means, then blatantly refuses to give him what he wants, keeping his fingers away from Steve's prostate. Steve's caught between bowing up for Bucky's mouth on his cock and fucking back onto Bucky's fingers. He whines, high and petulant, and Bucky quits teasing him almost instantaneously because his ass is whipped and Steve is a brat, but he's Bucky's brat and Bucky can already taste how it's gonna be when Steve comes on his tongue, the hot rush of salty liquid, completely different but still close enough to feeding that it's liable to make him come without even needing to touch his dick.

But Steve doesn't want that. Steve wants to get fucked, and Bucky's precious fucking brat always gets his way. Steve starts panting, "Come on, Buck, I'm ready, just get the fuck in me already, c'mon." 

So Bucky gets off his cock, takes his fingers out of Steve's ass and moves over Steve to fuck into him. Steve gets his legs up around Bucky's waist, and his arms around Bucky's shoulders, and the full body hug feels so good he just pauses for a second to enjoy it. It's so warm, and he's surrounded but he feels so safe. Steve's skin is soft and smooth and everywhere. The comfort and sense of home are just as much of what he missed about Steve and sex as any of the rest of it. But Steve's fussing, "C'mon Bucky quit teasing, I want it in me," so he fucks his hips into Steve's, one hand lining up his dick and the other bracing his weight on the headboard and _fuck_.

"Holy _fuck_."

"Yeah," says Steve, grinning dazedly beneath him, "yeah."

He holds there for a moment, the closeness unbearable like the bittersweet pain of his teeth, and then Steve's hips are moving beneath him and then they're fucking hard. Their bodies make obscene noises where they're joined, straight out of a blue movie, but Bucky can still hear the little huff of breath Steve makes every time Bucky bottoms out underneath his own harsh breathing, the occasional little panted, "yeah," "fuck," "God," "just like that." They're going hard, but they're not going that fast, and there's plenty of time for Bucky to watch Steve's face as he fucks him, the little moments of bunching brows and licking lips and flickering eyes as he gets fucked. Bucky steals a kiss, and then just breathes, lips wet and touching, and then pulls back to see Steve's eyes again. Steve's watching Bucky watching him too, and like a hall of mirrors it feels like infinity's echoing in the space between them, the gap between them getting smaller until it blurs away. He has missed this for so long. In a way, it feels like the first time. He still has all of his memories of before the fall, but none of them are immediate like this, none of them are happening now like this. Steve is his past, present and future and at this moment they are physically inseparable from each other. Bucky could take this moment and live in it forever. 

The hunger's not even present in his mind until Steve says, "Bucky, bite me," and he doesn't even think before he does it. He's raw, he's elemental. Steve is his and he is Steve's. He is home, Steve is his home, and _Steve is his_. His hips thrust into Steve without his input, and his mouth sucks at Steve's throat where the blood's running hot and wet out of Steve and into him, and he's rolling into Steve, where he's hot and wet and _tight_. There is nothing but Steve's blood in his mouth, slipping down deep inside him, and him deep inside Steve, and Steve's arms around him protecting him and keeping him safe and loving him. Steve's whispering, "Bucky, Bucky," breathlessly and desperately, Steve loves him, he _loves_ Steve. Steve's breaths sound like waves rushing in and out of his lungs, full and strong, and his hips are rolling up and into Bucky's every thrust. Bucky nuzzles Steve's neck, scents him as he fucks him and feeds from him, breathing his essence in deep, letting the feeling build inside him until he feels high out of his fucking mind with it. Steve's making the cutest fucking sound like, "ah, ah, ah" where Bucky's hitting his prostate on every stroke, like shots of liquor into Bucky's bloodstream. He can _taste_ Steve's orgasm mounting in his blood. He feels Steve's ass clench up round him, feels Steve painting come across their chests, he feels Steve's high in his blood, and he comes so hard he sees stars. 

Some time later, Bucky doesn't know how long and he doesn't care, Steve's hand is combing through his hair. He presses his face into Steve's neck again, half-wistful for that high again. He finds quickly that licking and sucking and breathing is easily good enough to fulfil the urge, so he kisses Steve's neck while they both come down. He sucks hickies into Steve's neck with relish. It must be a little painful for Steve, because Bucky's making them dark enough that they'll still show a little in a few hours despite Steve's rate of healing, but Steve doesn't complain. After a while though he says, "You know what, I think I like it."

Bucky sniggers, probably still a little sex-drunk, "I should fucking hope so Rogers."

"Dumbass." Steve swats his head, gently, before he goes back to petting him. "I meant your hair like this. It's soft."

"Hmm." Bucky tries to sound noncommittal, but he's fooling no one. They both know he's keeping the hair now. 

A little while later, Bucky rolls over and grabs Steve's t-shirt off the floor and half-heartedly mops up their mess with it. He hands the sports drink to Steve, who snorts. 

"These taste gross Buck."

"Don't care. Don't want you getting dizzy or something."

"That has never happened."

"Can't be too careful."

A little while after that, Steve is snoring softly beneath Bucky while he strokes Steve's skin and watches the city. It’s perfect. He has never known anything as perfect as this, lying fucked out and full in Steve’s arms. Sure, he can remember the way it was before, but those memories are blurred and old now. They feel like a long time ago. He feels like someone else. Bucky’s had to live through so much to get back here, with Steve, and every second of pain was worth it. 

A little while later, he sleeps.

 

 

 

Bucky thought, after that, that Steve was fine. That he felt as sure as Bucky does that now they’re back together, nothing bad can touch them. But five days later, he realises how wrong he’d been. Steve wakes up screaming Bucky’s name in the dead of night, and when Bucky calms him, it’s worse, because then he’s sobbing. Bucky holds him and pets him, wraps every limb around him and offers all the comforting words he can, until Steve’s breathing calms enough for him to say, slowly and carefully, “I know it was nothing, in comparison. I know it was only a couple years, but. I thought you were dead. I kept thinking, if I’d only...but it was in the past, it was over, and so I thought I should move on. I couldn’t, but I tried, and all that time, you were alive, you were out there, you were suffering. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I should have-” it’s coming out in a rush now, a torrent of emotion; Bucky can only guess at how long Steve’s been holding this back. 

Steve’s distress is almost physically painful, and all Bucky can say is, “Stop. Please, just. Just stop.” Steve does. He’s not crying anymore, but he’s burying his face into Bucky’s shoulder like if he holds on hard enough, he’ll never have to let go. Bucky holds him, and thinks. He thinks about how screwed up he’s felt the past few weeks before he came back to Steve, how alone and anchor-less, with the memory of Steve his only safe-harbour in the storm of his head. He thinks about Steve feeling that way for two years, without even the comfort of Bucky’s presence. He thinks about how both of them have lost everyone they’ve ever known. He thinks about the way it always seemed like Steve felt personally responsible for every bad thing that ever happened, if he could see even the slightest chance of being able stopping it, and he thinks of that moment, the barely-remembered, lost-in-time, suspended-animation feeling of falling, and Steve’s hand, and terror, and what that might feel like on a loop in nightmares. 

Bucky says, “It’s not nothing. It must have been hell. And I’m sorry too. I wish it hadn’t happened, too.”

Steve leans back enough to look at him, and you could drown an ocean in the guilt in his eyes when he says, “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. The reason you were there. The mission. The plan.”

This time, Bucky doesn’t have to stop and think. He has been dealing with Steve’s martyr complex for as long as he can remember. “Stevie, I love you, but you sure as fuck are stupid sometimes. Look, I chose to follow you into the war. I made that call - _I_ did, _me_. We did important work - good work. And after, there was an accident, and I fell. You are no more at fault for failing to grab onto me than I am for not being able to reach you.”

“I…I suppose.” Normally, Steve would be trying harder to fight against what Bucky’s saying, he can remember that much. So that means that Steve must really desperate to stop feeling the way he is now. He must be desperate for reassurance. Two years, Bucky reflects, is a long time to be tortured, emotionally or physically. And he should know; he has more of a sense of scale for that sort of thing than most people. 

Bucky wracks his brains for the right thing to say, and then he has it. “If you’d been the one to fall, would you blame me now for not catching you?”

“No. Of course not.” Steve sounds surer now, but still not certain.

“Steve, this guilt needs to stop. I understand the way you take responsibility for your actions, the way you feel duty bound to prevent people coming to harm, and I admire you for it. I love you for it. But this isn’t one of those times where it’s helpful. This isn’t a fight that needs winning. I know that you think that because you were there you should have stopped it, but Steve, you’re not a god. You’re not all-powerful. There was no way you could have saved me. You need to stop blaming yourself for something that was just bad luck.”

Steve nuzzles into Bucky’s shoulder again. His hands are holding onto Bucky’s sides, his leg is flung over the top of both of Bucky’s. It’s no secret that he’s possessive of Bucky - that they’re possessive of each other - but Bucky thinks that he didn’t used to feel the need to stake a physical claim like this. It’s something he’s been doing a lot recently 

“You don’t need to worry, Stevie.” What is it that Steve needs to hear? What is it that he can’t convince himself of? 

“I forgive you,” Bucky tries. Steve’s hands tighten around him, and he lets out a deep sigh, but he doesn’t say anything else. Bucky listens as Steve’s breathing slows down to sleep patterns again. 

Bucky thinks back to how it was before, so long ago, in Brooklyn. How they just used to be two scrappy kids with one moral compass between them, but it was Steve’s, so it was more than enough. The number of times and the number of ways that Steve has sacrificed himself for someone else’s good is vast - he’d risk teeth to fight bullies, he risked death to fight in the war, and he as good as let himself die to stop Red Skull’s plan. Bucky remembers reading about that in the museum, his brain a blurring mess of past and present, conflicting information and double identities, and at the time he’d only felt proud. Now, he thinks about how Steve followed him into the ice only a few days after Steve thought he’d died. Thinks about the words Steve spoke in the Park, _"I shouldn't have just given up."_ Dawn paints neon light across their walls, and Bucky wonders how many times he’ll have to tell Steve that he is forgiven before he believes it.

 

 

 

He wakes Steve up by sucking his dick, and then uses his extremely shaky and rarely-used culinary skills and a lot of Jarvis’ help to make an approximation of pancakes for Steve to eat once he gets out of the shower. When Bucky kisses Steve he tastes of orange juice and syrup, and it’s nice. Bucky can still appreciate the taste of some foods, as long as he tastes them on Steve’s lips. Steve returns Bucky’s favour, sucks down his dick where he stands at the kitchen counter, and Bucky sinks into his head enough to be unable to stop himself from curling down for Steve’s wrist as his hand strokes up Bucky’s chest and biting, just a little lovebite, just a tiny shot of venom, and then of course it escalates and they end up missing their early morning jog with Sam. 

They finally meet him an hour later for brunch in Sam and Steve’s favourite cafe bordering on Central Park. That evening they watch an anticlimactic horror movie with hilariously terrible special effects with the rest of the Avengers. As Bucky cradles Steve in his arms as he sleeps and watches darkness fall on top of an insomniac New York, he hopes that enough days like this will prove to Steve the truth that he doesn’t seem to believe when he hears it in Bucky’s words. Forgiveness, that was what Steve wanted. Bucky will prove it to him, with time and love. 

 

 

 

It takes two weeks before Bucky says anything to Steve about how they kept him. He’s reluctant even then, but Steve is so earnest, so determined not to push him and so desperate to know how to make it better. It’s a bad day - there was a news report this morning with an estimate of the number of people Hydra has killed through SHIELD and the number is in the thousands, and that’s not including the hundred thousand casualties of the wars that Hydra started, that he has helped to start. He feels like acid’s corroding his insides, anger and hate directed both at himself and his entire past, and Steve’s sticking close to him, not letting him sink into himself. He’s being so good to Bucky, keeping him occupied with new apps and books and TV shows to distract him without pressing him to spend all of his time interacting with Steve, and Bucky knows he has to give something back. Steve needs to know what Bucky feels, needs to find a way to help him, so Bucky tries his best to explain. He pulls Steve over to the couch and tells him, “I know what you think the problem is. You think I’m scared, because of what happened. I know you think that talking about it would help. I wanna try.” Steve smiles, proud and encouraging and hopeful, and Bucky looks away. 

He says, “I - they treated me like an animal. I hurt so much. I wanted to die and they wouldn’t let me. They told me - they brainwashed me. I thought there was no way out, nowhere I could go. I thought it was me or someone else. I can’t remember how long they made me live in a cage. I was always so fucking hungry, cold. I always needed to feed and I had to kill. I needed to kill. I knew it was wrong but I was so hungry. Like it was killing me. I couldn’t stop. Every time, I’d swear to myself I wouldn’t again, but then I’d forget. I killed all those people and none of them deserved it, I didn’t even _have_ a reason. I thought that was how I’d always lived. They took away everything that was left, I didn’t know who I was. There was no one to talk to, to ask. They beat me for asking. For talking. I just gave orders, on missions. I didn’t talk for years. How could they do that? How could they take that much? Kill someone, and make them carry on existing? I don’t-” His breath shudders in without his permission and he can’t speak. Steve is a tense unmoving pillar next to him, but Bucky knows what he wants to do, so he leans into Steve and lets it happen when he feels Steve’s arms come around him. Softly, into the silence he can feel Steve forcing himself to keep, he says, “I should feel more guilty than I do. I should...I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a punishment bad enough. The things I did.”

“No.” Steve’s voice is jagged dark flint. “No, baby. That’s not your fault. What they did to you - it’s not on you. None of that blood is on your hands.” 

Bucky laughs hollowly into the side of Steve’s neck, marvelling at how clear-cut and clean Steve’s mind must be. But he doesn’t say anything, because there are tears in his throat. Steve gets the message anyway, doesn’t try to make it better anymore, just holds him, calls him “Baby,” “sweetheart,” “darling,” and Bucky’s glad. There’s nothing comforting Steve can say that he will believe. There’s nothing anyone can say that Bucky doesn’t already know. 

Steve stays close to him for the next few days, and it helps. He’s never liked to feel alone. There’s nothing either of them can do about his past, and every reminder always tends to trigger a bad day. But Steve is always there, Bucky has faith that he’ll always be there, so that makes it a little easier. 

 

 

 

Bucky didn’t want to go to Bruce or Tony, but he does, eventually, about four weeks after he arrives at the tower. He picks Bruce, because of his tact, and gives him a blood sample and a specific question. 

The thing is, Bucky has always known he was different, since he was thirteen years old, but all he knew for sure was that the rules that are true for everyone else were not true for him. There was no guidance, no one to help him. There were things he had to stop wondering about, lest he go insane. He did not let himself think about where he fit into the grand scheme of heaven and hell. He did not think about how pure his attachment to Steve was. And he never, ever let himself think about the fact that since he was sixteen, he has known that Steve could die every winter. 

The idea of a world without Steve was enough to destroy his patriotism, his faith, himself. Steve knew that. Steve has always known him so well. Bucky didn’t talk about Steve’s weakness, so as not to upset him, and Steve did the same. Steve has always been self-destructive, and reckless, and it is because he has always known he would die too young. However, Bucky has always known otherwise. He has spent his life saving Steve from the fights he gets himself into, and he knows that he holds in his veins a cure for the fight against his own body that Steve can’t win. He couldn’t _tell_ Steve, but with luck, he wouldn’t need to. Bucky has always been determined to keep Steve alive, and safe, and healthy, and happy, and to stay with him until the end of the line. Until the day he died. Steve will die an old, old man, if Bucky has anything to say about it.

But the rules of biology do not apply to Bucky. He didn’t let himself think about it, but it had occurred to him that he has no way of knowing whether or not he would ever grow old. He just had no way of knowing, no one to ask. If he ever let himself think of it, it was only ever enough to come to the obvious conclusion - that he and Steve were destined for twin graves, side by side. There was no world for him without Steve in it. If Steve died before him, he would follow as soon after as he could. But mostly, he did not let himself linger on matters so morbid.

Of course, now, in the twenty-first century, there are people he can ask. 

Three days later, Bruce explains the results to him. The first thing he emphasises is that they’re unclear and inconclusive, and he has no way of being certain that his conclusions are accurate when he has no understanding or knowledge of Bucky’s species. Bruce also stresses that there is no record he can find of anyone surviving in anything like the cold that Bucky experienced, let alone for that long, except Steve, who isn’t human either, nor in any way a comparable sample. Bucky tells Bruce to get to the point. Bruce says, “Your body is approximately ninety years old, and yet despite that, you appear to be in your late twenties, early thirties.”

Bucky says, “I’m ninety-six. Well, I was born ninety-six years ago.” 

“Right. Well, I am in _no way sure_ , but I _think_ , and this is just an _opinion-_ ”

“Bruce.”

“I think part of the reason you don’t appear to have aged at all is because your body was in cryofreeze. I mean, your heart wasn’t beating - Hydra essentially killed your body, preserved it, then resurrected it, multiple times. You haven’t actually been alive for ninety-six years.” Like a zombie, like something out of one of the goddamned stupid horror films. Ghosts. He knew, but he didn’t know. He thought he’d slept. Bucky can’t breathe for a moment, can’t think for a moment. He’d asked to do this privately, but he imagines what Steve would say if he were here. He’d say something stupid about Lazarus, probably, about miracles. Talk about Jesus, rising on the third day, because and only because God willed it. 

Bruce says, “There’s more, though.”

There always fucking is, isn’t there?

“The file Natasha found is incomplete, but there are still more than ten years worth of time recorded with you awake. Your body doesn’t show a change like that. You still show indicators of being barely out of adolescence.”

“Twenty-six. I was twenty-six, when I fell.”

“Right.” Bruce’s professional demeanour is broken, for a second, by a furrow in his brow. He’s probably thinking something like, _he was so young_. Bucky knows that. It’s sad, sure it’s sad, but there is no age requirement for pain. Boys like he was died younger than that in the war. He’s killed people younger than that. “Right, sure. Ok. In that case, I think that although your cells are ageing, it’s at a much slower rate than most humans’. Now, I have a - who am I kidding? It’s not even a theory, it’s an idea.” Bruce takes off his glasses, rubs a hand over his face. The professional demeanour is completely gone now. “I know why you asked me this, ok? The way you and him are. You haven’t cared about anything else, but you care about this. It’s obvious why you want to know how long you have. Lucky for you, this was my specialty, once. Cell function optimisation. I did a lot of work on this, a long time ago.” He sighs, sounding exhausted, before he says,“What I’m about to share should be good news, or it could be false hope, so I want you to take it with a pinch of salt, ok?” 

He waits for Bucky to nod impatiently before he continues.

“Neither you or Steve are biologically comparable to most humans, but there are some similarities between you. As far as I can tell, both of you have most of the same genetic material as every other human, with only a few differences. I think to explain this I need to explain how human biology is really pretty flawed. Every time a cell replicates, the original genetic material is split, and damaged. So as you get older, the new cells that you create are flawed. That’s part of the normal human ageing process. It’s the cause of cancer. It’s something experienced by every single type of organism. Apart from you two. Because if that process occurred in your cells, you would both be dead already, your cell replacement rate is so fast. You would both be riddled with multiple tumours by now, twenties or not. I mean, apart from getting shot at and whatever else, there’s the practical every day wear and tear. Your cells have the ability to replace themselves at a much higher rate than normal humans. You heal damage almost as fast as it happens - you need to be well-rested and well-fed but you can, within limits, heal anything. Being able to heal like that should kill you. And then, on top of that, your cells are capable of much, much higher rates of respiration than any other animal cell. This enables the incredible feats that both yourself and Steve are capable of - the speed, strength, etcetera. Your breathing and heartbeat speed up to ridiculous rates that would look like a fit in a normal person. But that level of respiration would kill any ordinary cell. And the rate at which your bodies demand energy - it should burn you out. A heart attack or a stroke or…your abilities should kill you a dozen times a minute. So both of you have adaptations. I’d need a few years, better equipment than I have here and your permission for a lot of invasive tests to be sure how you’re still alive, but I can hazard some guesses. Your bodies might be able to continue producing stem cells throughout your entire life times, in order to create more effective new tissue and heal wounds faster, or maybe you just have improved autophagy processes so any cancerous tumours are destroyed as they develop, or…” Bruce ceases to make broad hand gestures. "Well, anyway, there’s almost no one that can be trusted to study any of this because of how highly weaponisable it all is. So it’ll probably be a long time before we can understand for sure, if we ever do at all. But in shoddy and inconclusive conclusion; you and Steve probably shouldn’t exist in the first place, but now that you do, you’re probably going to carry on existing for a very long time. You may well begin to age, at some point, but it isn’t going to be soon. For all I know, it won’t happen at all.”

Bucky is reeling. Immortality. That’s what Bruce is talking about. He’s immortal. He latches onto the most important thing first, “But we’re the same? Me and Steve, whatever happens, it’ll be the same for both of us?”

“As far as I can tell with the samples, timeframe, reference data and equipment that I have - yes. I think so.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you going to give me any more samples, or…?”

“No.” 

“Probably for the best. Whatever mechanism your cells use, I don’t think that the world is ready to know about it, just yet. But, hey, if you’re still around in a few years, maybe we can see.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll let you go and find Steve then.”

“Yeah.” 

 

 

 

When he does, all he can get out is, “Forever. We have forever.” And then he blows Steve where he finds him on their couch, where he was trying to get some drawing done. Steve, gentleman that he is, feels the need to return the favour. In the end, they miss dinner with the rest of the team, and it’s not until an hour later that Bucky tells Steve, haltingly, that, “I asked Bruce to look at some samples. He did a lot of work on them. He thinks - he thinks that we won’t age. That we’ll never age. We heal too fast. We’re gonna live a really fucking long time, Stevie.”

“What? How?”

“Um, I don’t know really, you’d need to get him to explain it to you-”

“But it’s the same for both of us? Whether we age or not, it’s the same?”

“Yeah, he thinks so.” 

“Fuck. Thank God.” Steve rolls into him, where they lie in bed, and buries his face into Bucky’s throat. “I didn’t even want to think about it-”

“I know, me neither-”

“-but it’s going to be ok, we have forever-”

“Bruce said he _thinks_ so, he can’t be sure-”

“Yes, but-”

“Yeah.”

“Forever. Both of us.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank God. All the ways it could have gone. Thank - I’m going to start going to church again. This is brilliant.” 

Bucky laughs out loud at the joy on Steve’s face, the joy that’s mirrored in himself. “Yeah, you do that. I might even join you.”

“You better had. Sinner like you, you need to get in as much of a good word as you can.”

The joy fades a little, at that. “I know.”

“Hey, Bucky, hey, I’m joking."

“I know.” He tries to smile and succeeds, because he is, still, ecstatically happy about this.

“Well, you’ll have time now. We’re going to have time. Fuck, you know, I always thought that I wouldn’t - And then the war and - but we really are.”

“Together.”

Steve kisses him. He kisses back. Ten minutes later Steve's holding Bucky’s wrists fast above his head in one hand while his other’s messing around with Bucky’s well-lubed asshole, teasing with him, playing with him, making sure he’s hard enough to hammer nails well before Steve ever touches his dick, before he even gets to be fucked. He could get out of it, but the pressure of most of Steve’s weight on his wrists and on his thighs where Steve’s legs are pinning his own down is still substantial, and it would take some effort. Even though it’s restraint it feels like release. He can feel and think and say whatever he wants, but he cannot act. It feels like there will be no consequences. It feels like he’s free. Steve’s ankles are twisted around Bucky’s calves, and his hand is gripping hard enough to leave marks, and his fingers are fucking teasing his asshole every fucking place apart from where he needs them, and Bucky talks nonsense, talks about how much he loves Steve’s body on top of his. He’s loose and losing control, and _safe_. Hot heat surging through him, and he doesn’t have to _worry_ , he doesn’t have to _think_. He just talks shit, lets his mouth run however it wants. He can feel fire burning him up inside as he tells Steve that he’s “a complete and utter bastard, you know that? Heartless, you are. You owned me since I was sixteen. You made me into a fucking idiot for you. You never gave me a fucking chance. Ruined me for everyone.” 

Steve likes it, he’s possessive as fuck and he loves Bucky talking like this. The stuff Bucky’s saying’s would be heavy if he wasn’t sex-drunk but it doesn’t matter because it’s true and Steve likes the sound of it and it’s bringing him closer when he’s been so far from Bucky for so long. Smile like a wolf’s looks good on Steve. He’s pressing his fingers deeper, scissoring them and rubbing and pressing just right, giving Bucky a little relief from the burning need Steve’s built inside him, a reward for talking so sweet to him. There’s very little Bucky won’t do for relief, at this point, so he says, breathless, “Since I was a kid, I had no choice. I’ve known the sound of your heartbeat since we were kids, you know that? I could pick you out in a crowd of hundreds. Everything, your smell, everything, it’s wired so deep into me, I won’t ever forget it. Can’t. Didn’t.”

“Wow Bucky.” Steve’s grinning into Bucky’s collarbone, the shit, Bucky can feel it. “I feel so sorry for you. You love me. Sounds so awful for you.”

“Well, it is. Never gave me a goddamned choice.” 

He hears Steve muffle his laugh at Bucky’s petulance. Then he lifts his head up, makes eye contact as he croons, “Oh, poor baby. My poor darling. But tough shit.” He tightens his grip on Bucky’s wrists. “Because I love you too. I need you too. Nothing either of us can do about it. You think I could ever look at anyone else? I can’t.”

“You can. You can have anyone-”

“So could you. But you won’t. This is it, for both of us, sweetheart.” He presses his fingers into Bucky’s prostrate, and then he doesn’t take them away, just grinds into him until Bucky’s a stuttering mess. Finally, after a concentrated effort, Bucky slurs out, “Worth it.”

“What’s that?” Steve asks in a casual, conversational, completely innocent tone, as he scissors his fingers and then twists three of them - Bucky sure as fuck doesn't know when the third got there - against Bucky’s sweet spot, and he almost whines as he says, “You. Worth it.”

“How sweet. My sweet sweetheart. Yeah, you’re right. No one else could ever give me this. You’re so fucking beautiful for me. Gorgeous.” Bucky does whine then, now that he’s desperate enough that his pride doesn’t matter any more. Steve teases Bucky for just a little longer before he finally slides into him, and time stretches and snaps. Bucky just floats. His vision is blurry as he comes. Steve fucks him through it and then keeps on fucking him. The sounds coming out of his mouth now don’t even vaguely resemble speech. He’s used up and raw, but it’s Steve, kissing him and nuzzling him and pressing his weight down onto him, and despite or because of the fact that he feels like an open wound, he knows he could come again. Then Steve presses his neck into Bucky’s mouth, a clear invitation, and in retaliation for all of that fucking teasing, he does nothing but lick and kiss and graze with his teeth for minutes until Steve gets impatient. He kisses Bucky roughly, practically assaulting his mouth because he’s a sneaky little shit with a definite aim in mind, and sure enough he gets himself cut on Bucky’s teeth. And then Steve’s blood is in his mouth, and this time when Steve presents his neck Bucky bites. He can feel Steve coming inside him, then going languid and pliant against him. But that won’t do at all - he’s close again, now, the taste of Steve’s blood getting him hard all over again. He rolls them so he’s on top of Steve, dislodging his teeth but not Steve’s dick, and bites into him anew. Steve’s still hard, will probably stay hard for as long as Bucky’s venom’s in his system, so he carries on rutting on Steve’s cock until he comes again. He rolls back off Steve, but Steve moans and pulls him close again, throws his legs over Bucky’s possessively. 

They don’t see any of the rest of the team until the next morning, and when they do, although they’ve both showered and combed their hair, they still get a couple of wolf whistles from Tony and Clint, because they’re both pretty marked up and they’re wearing each other’s shirts. 

 

 

 

Bucky doesn’t meet Thor until over a month after he comes to the tower. Thor is boisterous but polite, and brings four of his boisterous but polite friends with him from Asgard. Tony decides that it’s enough of an event to merit a celebration, and somebody cracks out the Asgardian mead. Bucky has exactly two memories of the night after that point: 

Attempting to explain his own deep and abiding love for Steve, despite the fact that for the majority of the past seven decades he couldn’t remember Steve’s face, personality or name, whilst Thor’s friend Sif, who he had first met earlier in the evening, nodded solemnly and said, “I know exactly what you mean,”

and

fucking Steve hard enough to break their bed, and then continuing to fuck him into the mattress resting directly on the floor, not realising that an equally-drunk Steve was laughing the entire time even as he came, and realising the hilarity in the afterglow only to giggle with Steve, hiccuping occasionally, for minutes afterwards before falling into sleep.

In the morning, Bucky wakes up with a headache to rival the aftermath of electrocution to the head and swears to never drink any kind of alcohol ever again. 

 

 

 

Bucky explains the nature of his condition to Thor a week after he arrives back at the tower, due solely to oversight and lack of communication; everyone assumed that someone else had told Thor. Once he’s done explaining that he’s a vampire, and also what a vampire is Thor, intrigued, asks, “Is this common, then, on Midgard?" 

“No. I’m the only one that I know of.”

 

 

 

When Bucky has been back with Steve for a little over two months, Natasha approaches him in the common room early in the morning, when no one else is yet awake, because despite the various serums, suits, species and superpowers in the tower, Bucky still wins the prize for the worst insomniac. His favourite use for his extra time, is, as it always has been, to lie in bed and hold Steve in his arms as he sleeps, sometimes reading and sometimes just enjoying Steve’s peaceful presence. But today he thought he’d have another try at getting Steve breakfast in bed. There’s more food in the common room kitchen than in theirs, since only one person in their apartment eats, so Bucky decided that he may as well make enough breakfast for everyone. Jarvis has helped him do the maths to make enough food for three people plus a superhuman and a god. He’s mixing the pancake batter when Natasha comes over and situates herself directly opposite Bucky on a stool at the kitchen countertop.  

She tells him, “Since I found your file, I’ve been working on, well, on a little research project of mine. Just tracking down a few leads in my spare time, you know. And I’ve recently had a little success. To cut to the chase: I don’t think you’re the only one.”

Of course he’s not, he can’t be. His father was like him too. He knew that. So why is this such a shock?

“I haven’t been able to find anything solid, but I think that the KGB were tracking someone like you in Moscow, a few years ago - it was a woman suspected of treason and facial recognition software matched her to a portrait of a nineteenth century revolutionist. She hadn’t aged a day. Also, the CIA have been keeping tabs on a chain of clubs along the west coast of the US where patrons occasionally disappear and then turn up a few days later, in their own beds, with no traceable drugs in their system or wounds but exhibiting signs of blood loss. There was a suspected vigilante in South America a few years ago who SHIELD tracked running at 100 metres in 9 seconds flat. He also had an odd knack of getting any information he wanted whilst leaving the informant unconscious and unharmed, but, again, with the blood loss. So, I think it’s safe to say that whilst vampires appear to be rare, you are definitely part of a wider species.” 

There is a pause, and Bucky says, “Ok.” He does not say, what about the others? Because although Natasha has told him about revolutionaries and vigilantes, vampires who leave their victims alive, he’s guessing that there are also a dozen stories of serial killers who leave drained victims in their wake. 

“I don’t suppose you want to get in contact-”

“No.”

“Fair enough.” Natasha watches his face carefully, and then sighs. “I know what you’re thinking. But I didn’t find anything about killer vampires. I know that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any, but if there are, a they’ve learned to cover their tracks pretty well. I expect one would, with that much time. Immortality, Bruce said.”

“Yes.”

“Steve as well?" 

“Yeah. Well, probably.”

“That’s lucky.” Natasha studiously studies the fridge door behind him for a few seconds. It’s got a shopping list, a few post-it notes and a swear word written out in magnetic letters on it. Then she says, “You know, the original files the Red Room kept on me have all mysteriously vanished. They didn’t even get turned up in the Hydra data dump. But, once upon a time, there were a few documents that listed my date of birth in the 1960s. Height of the Cold War. Lots of research into super soldiers. So, how would you say I look for a woman in her fifties?”

“I would say you look beautiful. But it’s rude to ask a lady her age.” Natasha laughs at him, not unkindly. 

“Do you want to help me make pancakes? I don’t know if I’m doing it right.”

“You look like you’re doing fine. Although, you could add vanilla essence. And I like mine with blueberries.”

Natasha helps him make pancakes, and then serves up the food for herself, Bruce, Tony, Clint and Thor while Bucky takes Steve’s portion to him in his bed. 

 

 

 

Ever since that first day, going round Central Park has become something of a tradition for them. 

Bucky’s always been a city boy, through and through. His time in rural war-torn Europe has only ever cemented that assertion - he’s had enough waterlogged fields of mud, suspicious and violent livestock and sleeping in shit-stinking barns for a lifetime, thank you very much. He’s been other places too. Other farmland in hotter countries with emaciated animal carcasses in the rivers and bloodstains and burning villages. Wars he’s started. He’s been in deserts as far as the eye can see, ones filled with nothing but ice and mud under snow, where the grounds is solid and frozen down miles deep. Other deserts filled with sun-baked brown dirt and grit that got under nails and into his hair and his eyes despite the goggles. Jungles filled with a smell like warm bodies, air thick with biting insects, canopies as high as the sky, choked with vines. Forests heavy and quiet with snow. 

He’s seen cities filled with death as well, of course. He spent a few weeks in London in the Blitz, and he’s started revolutions in cities full of domes, skyscrapers, townhouses, cathedrals, mosques, synagogues. Despite it all, his home is still in cities - this city. This one in particular, he has never seen broken. Poor, sure, he grew up in the slums, but he has never seen it dying. The Great Depression just made Brooklyn more stubborn. Political turbulence, unrest and riot barely put a scuff in the paintwork. World wars one and two sucked out the joy, but peacetime breathed it back in. People die, people get born. And despite how much he loves the streets and alleyways, the skyscrapers and the marketplaces and squares, the streets full of light and noise, his favourite place in New York City is Central Park. He likes the pigeons strutting in grey suits like CEOs, he likes the squirrels greedy and brave like pickpockets, and he likes the trees. He likes being here, with Steve, as much as he can be. 

Both of them don sunglasses and caps, hoodies as well if the weather’s bad enough, and they walk around the park. Steve buys terrible junk food and Bucky tastes it on his lips. When it’s raining they share an umbrella, and when it’s sunny they lie on the grass. This is the same place they sometimes played as children, and it’s not. It’s older - trees that were saplings are now giants, trees that were old are now stumps. But the flower beds still grow the same blooms, there are still ducks in the ponds and there are still the same winding gravelled paths, which are sometimes crowded and sometimes empty for hours. Being together in public is still a thrill, for both of them, Bucky thinks. It’s the greatest luxury he can imagine to be allowed to hold Steve’s hand, kiss his lips, lie next to him under the cherry trees, snowing pink in spring. Like the first time, sometimes they don’t stop talking for hours, sometimes they say nothing.

If he’s got eternity, this is where he wants it. If he hasn’t, then keeping the memory of this place within him for the rest of his days will be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic would never have been completed without the constant aid of my self-proclaimed ‘tireless cheerleader’ protectthesandwhich. Thank you so much to everyone who’s commented and kudosed this fic, I treasure every one! Sorry it took a year. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> EDIT: re-posted with one less embarrassing typo. Thanks so much Reesachan for letting me know!


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